September 2009

As I write this, we are seated at a picnic table next to our tent, on a campsite in Death Valley called Emigrant. If it wasn’t for the lights on a parked RV some 100 metres away, and the moon and some stars, it would be pitch black. We chose this site as it has flushing toilets (as opposed to “pit” toilets), at an elevation of some 2000 feet above sea level is slighter cooler, and perhaps most important of all: it’s free. The main drawback is that the ground of the site is essentially gravel. Needless to say, there would’ve been more chance of getting the tent pegs in in a Sainsbury’s car park. A comfortable night’s sleep awaits…

Death Valley is hot. It’s even hotter than my office. Temperatures have probably been in the 100’s Fahrenheit (40’s Celsius) today, and on average this place is the hottest on Earth. All the birds seem to wander round with their beaks open.

When we arrived at the campsite this morning, I went to use the restroom (toilet), and after turning to the sink was startled by what appeared to be an owl staring at me, opening and shutting it’s beak aggressively.  I made my excuses and left.

Most of the touristy sites around Death Valley consist of rocks, and there are a lot here. The Natural Bridge rock shaped like a bridge, the Artists Pallette has some rocks that are different colours, and in fact everywhere you look there’s rocks. Of course, I’m just being flippant, but that’s only because I can’t really do some of the incredible views justice. The landscapes and scenery here are among some of the most amazing I’ve ever seen, and the transition from daylight to shadowy dusk opens up a whole load more breathtaking scenes.

However, despite the great experience today has been, Vic and I both share the same view that we are over camping, and are very much looking forward to our Vegas hotel tomorrow…

Tuesday we arrived and set up camp in Yosemite National Park, at the Hodgdon Meadow site for three nights. There were no shower facilities, and we slept on an old duvet we picked up at the Salvation Army back in Santa Cruz for about a dollar which interestingly, despite looking like something a teenager would’ve slept on, still manages to smell of old people. I’ll let you use your imagination as to how the tent smelt this morning before we left.

Yosemite was a wonderful place with blue, completely cloudless skies, extremely low levels of background noise, and wildlife aplenty. I know I’ll probably regret saying this in a couple of weeks when I’m sat in front of a computer at work, and am fully aware I will get the absolute bare minimum of sympathy from those reading this, but I think you can get a bit “beached out” after a while. Therefore the change of scenery for this next section of the trip was most welcome.

Wednesday we actually enjoying doing absolutely nothing, apart from reading and having a barbeque, but the rest of the time we hiked and drove some fantastic scenery that the photos don‘t do justice. We saw giant sequoias, bizarre bright blue birds, scaled down squirrels, chip monk type things, deer, and even woodpeckers and a bear. One morning I was woken by a bird producing a noise reminiscent of a 1980’s computer game. I was actually disappointed not to see more bears, as the campsite and surrounding area was apparently crawling with them, and there were specific instructions everywhere not to speed on the roads, and not to leave food in tents or cars, locking everything food like or cosmetic in special bear proof containers. Amusing as it may seem to imagine bears breaking into cars to steal food, the sad reality is that if they become too used to doing this they have to be shot. However, despite the bears, I think the greatest danger for us was probably that of being hit by a pinecone the size of a melon falling from one of the pine trees.

This morning (Friday) we took Routes 120 and 395 to Bishop, stopping off for a swim in Mono Lake – really salty so you float like the Dead Sea, very enjoyable – and checked into a Super 8 Motel.

Tonight’s shower was fantastic after three days and being covered in salt, and the proper bed won’t go unnoticed, but tomorrow we drive a further 200 miles on Routes 395 and 190 to an as yet undecided camp site on Death Valley. I understand it’s capable of some pretty extreme high and low temperatures, so if you don’t hear from me in a few days, you’ll have a vague idea of where our bodies are.

I don’t understand why in America, when you get gas (petrol) at a gas station (garage) you have to go to the counter first with your credit card so you can’t drive off without paying.  Then despite this over cautiousness, when you’ve filled up and returned to the counter they don’t even check your signature. I guess as long as they get their money it doesn’t matter if you’re using someone else’s card.

On Thursday we went to Monterey Aquarium, where we saw some of the most amazing fish and other sea creatures – including massive 300lb tuna, great white and hammerhead sharks, otters, more types of jellyfish than I could have imagined existed, and sea horses and dragons.

Friday we left Monterey and headed up Route 1 to Santa Cruz, and amazingly saw some Americans who were even paler than me, which takes some doing. Further up the pier, apart from a surprising number of people nonchalantly fishing next to “no fishing” signs, was a fairly impressive crowd of sea lions just lying on top of each other in a big heap. They’re fascinating creatures to watch – lazily crawling over and slapping each other, barking, and generally stinking up the place. We now know how to tell them from seals as well (seals have smaller flippers so bounce along on their bellies on land, and growl instead of barking. This is educational isn’t it?)

I’m getting distracted by watching Speed on HBO. It’s one of the many well known films I haven’t actually seen.

Anyway, we then had lunch in a specialist veggie restaurant much to Vic’s delight called the Saturn Café, then drove up Route 17 to San Jose. (Do You Know the Way to San Jose? Yes, I just told you didn‘t I.) San Jose, being inland, was much hotter than the coast, and was actually too hot to stick around too long, so we checked out some gay and lesbian art, part of a new exhibition at Works/Community Art and Performance Centre and then set off for San Francisco on Route 101.

We spent Friday night until Monday afternoon in San Francisco, staying at the Cathedral Hill Hotel. This hotel is the most expensive we’ve stayed in so far, and seems to follow the rule of the more you pay for a hotel room, the less you get included for the price. We had to pay $20 a day for parking, and the WiFi was extortionate so we decided not to give them any more of our money. Also I’m sure the fat, lazy parking attendant muttered “f***ing asshole” under his breath when I couldn’t find my ticket.

During our time in San Fran we went to the Contemporary Jewish Museum downtown to see a celebration of artist Maurice Sendak’s illustrations (he did that “Where the Wild Things Are” children’s book which you may know), thought we’d see Little Boots on a whim one night but it was sold out, had a bus ride during which some “youths” smashed the back doors, went to a Moroccan restaurant on a local paper’s recommendation where evidently no-one had bothered to make any of the desserts on the menu, went shopping round Union Square, did more sea lion stalking at Fisherman’s Wharf, and of course, took a trip to Alcatraz.

Just watched that ridiculous bus jump. Keanu Reeves is an amazing actor.

So this afternoon, after the Alcatraz tour we drove up to see the “famous” Golden Gate Bridge, which isn’t golden or a gate and was unfortunately almost completely obscured by mist, then drove up Route 5 to Stockton where we’re stopping over tonight before continuing on to Yosemite tomorrow for a couple of nights. Then it’s camping in Death Valley and on to a tacky hotel in Vegas.

It’s very likely we won’t have internet for a few days, but if anyone’s still actually reading this, all the photos and videos we’ve taken so far are on Flickr. Luckily the beauty of Flickr is how you can quickly skim over everything.

I have just been called an asshole by a woman cycling on the pavement in Monterey, who clearly took offence at my pulling out of a carpark, slowly and safely, several metres away from her. However, almost immediately afterwards she changed her attitude entirely by asking me if I was blind. Nice of her to show an interest in my optical health.

On Sunday we woke up on the El Capitan State Beach campsite to the unexpected sound of rain, but luckily it had stopped by the time we’d driven back in to Santa Barbara, after checking out Refugio State Beach. We visited The Mission, then spent the day chilling out round the town and beach before driving up to Pismo Beach in time to catch the sunset and eat an apparently common American treat of Graham crackers. Pismo Beach is slightly unusual in that people go there to drive their 4×4 vehicles all over it. On the way we passed through Guadalupe where the almost entirely Mexican population were celebrating Fiestas Patrias. We stayed the night in a cheap Motel 6 in San Luis Obispo.

Monday I started the day with a Devil’s Mess. That’s a breakfast of scrambled eggs, spinach, chilli, onions and sausage. We then got back on the road and headed up to Morro Bay where we kayaked and took a trip on a boat including a “sub sea” tour – basically going downstairs on the boat and looking at fish through the glass. The most enjoyable parts for me during the kayaking were getting up close to a bunch of sea lions, and watching a pelican yawn and seemingly turn its throat inside out. You don‘t see that every day. After enjoying a Mexican shrimp salad at a nearby café that was roughly as tasty as a glass of tap water, we went for a hike up to the summit of Cerro Alto, which is a 2620 feet high hill about 8 miles east of Morro Bay. I think we saw some of the greatest views I’ve ever seen from up there, and also possibly the most lizards I’ve ever seen. There was even a lizard looking up at me from one of the toilets. We spent the night in another Motel 6, this time in San Simeon.

Tuesday we visited Hearst Castle, the sprawling, extravagant property designed and built  for publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst from 1919 until his death in 1947, in which he gathered artefacts from all over the world and built more and more rooms to put them in. He even brought in polar bears, and apparently there are still zebras kicking around the grounds. We then had lunch on Memorial State Beach, saw some seals off Route 1, then had a chilled night.

When I say Route 1, I am of course referring to the “famous” Route 1. I wonder if anyone looks forward to coming over to London and driving on the “famous” A3?

Anyway, this morning we got up early and headed North up Route 1 to Big Sur stopping at various view points, did some hiking at Julia Pfeiffer and Pfeiffer-Big Sur State Parks, and looked in vain for otters at Willow Creek, before carrying on up to Monterey. Incidentally the mention of “Big Sur” tends to remind me of the song of that name by the tedious Irish rock band The Thrills, but I still enjoyed the day nonetheless.

To finish this off for now, tonight we had the best pizza we’ve had since we got here in a place called Gianni’s, although judging by the size of some of the other patrons of the establishment, it’s not somewhere we should eat regularly.

We’re planning on staying here for a couple of days before heading off to San Francisco. Oh, and if you’ve been looking at the photos on Flickr, you’re probably thinking we’ve taken enough photos of the sea, beaches and lizards, so we’ll try and change that from now on. And I’m two chapters in to Alan Carr’s book.

My current location is with Vic in a small tent that smells of plastic, at El Capitan State Beach just off Route 101 to the west of Goleta, which is itself just to the west of Santa Barbara. I can hear the sound of Americans
laughing and high fiving each other while listening to what sounds like a cross between AOR and Country Rock. We have just retired to our tent after a nutritious dinner of bread, not particularly spicy Spicy Doritos, plastic cheese, salami and Heineken. Vic tells me she has had two traumatic toilet trips at the campsite so far this evening, one involving bursting in on a child who hadn’t locked their cubicle door, and the other with a dog suddenly appearing from under the partition. I, of course, have my own problems. The sunburn on the backs of my legs from riding round LA a couple of days ago still hurts, and I still have stupid sunburn stripes on my shoulders where the rucksack I was wearing while riding the bike evidently rubbed off my Factor 40.

Today is Saturday 12th September 2009 and has been our third full day in California, but the first morning where we didn’t wake up at 6-something AM, having gone to bed too early the previous night due to our bodies still being on UK time. We left LA this morning where we stayed the last three nights, swapped our hire car for another which didn’t have a tyre problem, then drove a hundred or so miles to where we are now, through Malibu where we had a tasteless Thai meal , then stopped off and checked out some surfers on a beach near Point Mugu, then carried on through Oxnard, then Ventura, and then in to Santa Barbara before continuing on to El Capitan. The weather today has been quite cloudy, but was previously sunny and hot.

In case you didn’t know, Vic and I are travelling round California for four weeks on our belated honeymoon. We arrived at LAX around 8pm local time on Wednesday night, which would be about 4am UK time. At 11 hours, this was the longest flight I’ve ever experienced. I watched four films, which is probably more than I’ve watched this year. (Burn After Reading and The Hangover were good, Slumdog Millionaire was OK, and Peter’s Friends was disappointingly shit, especially as it had Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie in it.)

As a result of our jetlag we were in bed at our hostel, the confusingly named Venice Beach Cotel, not long after 10 LA time (although I managed to fit in my first pastrami sandwich of the holiday at a diner where Vic got asked for ID much to her delight), so were annoyingly up and about not long after 6 the next morning. By 7.30 there were already surfers turning up to fit in a few early morning waves, and a few guys shooting hoops on the nearby basketball court. Just a few hours later the whole area around Venice Beach was full of joggers, street performers, posers, nutters, beggars and tourists. The famous Muscle Beach didn’t seem that different from what I’m used to seeing down my local gym in Epsom – a load of well built guys posing with weights while checking themselves out. The subtle difference however is the fact it’s all outside and they’re wearing incredibly skimpy pants and no tops. A joy to behold.

We spent most of  that day cycling around the Venice area of LA. Obviously when I say Venice, I’m not talking about that Venice, I mean Venice in Los Angeles. We hired bikes which we took round Venice Beach, and up to the Marina Del Ray and back, something like 18 miles. I haven’t ridden a bike for about 15 years, and I’ve never actually ridden one on the road, especially not a one-speed bike with no brakes. Shitting myself doesn’t come close to describing my initial fear, and I pretty much wore out the soles of my sandals doing emergency stops. We finished off the night with dinner at Danny’s, an apparently world famous eatery, while listening to a crazy lady singing jazz, while occasionally telling stories of not being able to keep her hands off people, and something about being Jewish by osmosis…

On Friday morning, we picked up our hire car, and investigated more of Los Angeles. This was my first ever experience of driving in the States, but still much less scary than that bike. OK so driving on the right in a left hand drive car, and being allowed to go through red lights if you’re turning right can take a bit of getting used to, but at least an automatic car stops me instinctively trying to change gear with the door handle as I did while in France last year. So, after stopping off at a Farmers Market for food, we went up Sunset Strip, Sunset Boulevard, down Hollywood Boulevard, then parked up and checked out the Kodak theatre, Chinese Theatre, and the “walk of fame” stars and hand prints. We then drove up into the Hollywood Hills, getting about as close as you can get to seeing the Hollywood sign nowadays  (I understand you can’t get to it anymore as people either try and steal the letters or try and kill themselves by jumping off them.) We finished this off with a brief stint in Beverley Hills trying to spot celebrities on Rodeo Drive, before driving down to Anaheim to watch a baseball game between the Los Angeles Angels and the Chicago White Sox. Today’s Santa Barbara News Press contains a report on the game which talks of come backers, inning-ending double plays, on-deck hitters and solo homers. I still have no idea what went on in that game. If I had to write a game report I probably would’ve just talked about how one guy broke a bit off his bat, and how another guy selling drinks spilled a load of iced water over some woman in the stands.

The music has stopped. The country rock did turn into strange covers of the Kinks, Blondie and Fine Young Cannibals while I was writing all that, but now all I can hear is the generator from someone else’s pitch and the crash of waves. There is perhaps obviously no WiFi here, so I will save this to hopefully upload when we next have an opportunity. I also need a wee so it’s time to put the netbook down. I may read some of Alan Carr’s book in a bit. I’ll be in touch.

Of course, since telling you about needing a wee just then, I have been for several, as it’s 24 hours later and I’m in a motel room in San Luis Obispo, having just re-read and re-written much of the above and about to finally upload it. That will definately do for now. Goodnight.