Tuesday, April 04, 2006

California – the last bit.

It’s been a while since I was there, but I did promise I would complete the saga, so here it is. Better late than never as they say…….

Sitting at my table having my fries and burger at Capitola Beach I had decided that I did’nt want to go surfing ……..

“Strangely enough I did’nt really want to go in, I’d come all this way to travel, and do a bit of surfing , and now I was’nt bothered. It was as if all the motivation had dissipated into the Californian sun.”


I had obviously reached that point in my trip that I always seem to get… a sort of ennui, a wanting to lie back and be lazy, or to have people I knew around me, or to get a move on and get on that flight home, back to routine and security, or just to friends and family or maybe I was just suffering bthe pangs of loneliness in a foreign land… I’ve thought about this oft-time and put it down as being the point where you stop ‘being on holiday’ and start ‘living there’. It usually happens to me around day 16 of any extended trip. You’ve been there, done that, and now you are counting down to going home. It was a feeling I’d had before whilst in Utah, the others were out at work and I was left to my own devices, but no car, therefore nothing much to do except chill out and read. What I should have done was set up some sort of excursion for the last day or so, such as a side trip to Yosemite or up to the Napa valley….. but I had’nt, just a date to meet up with Daniele and to help her sort out her exhibition.

So.. I made some rearrangements, and decided to stay at San Luis Osbiso for a night so, and then head south to Jalama and maybe to Santa Barbara….. On the way I called in at Morro Bay which I liked, a lot. It had an honesty about it that I found refreshing. It had a ‘proper’ harbour - tourists notwithstanding, where real seafood was being unloaded. It also had a decent small surf shop where I bought a new pair of slaps, my old ones being close on 30 years old [yes, they last that long!]

The surf was running strongly and I still had no urge whatsoever to go in. I wandered around Moro Bay for a while and had some lunch, and then set off towards SLO [or Slow as everyone else called it] only 20 miles distant. Booked into the nice little HI hostel [$10 a night]. It was warm in SLO and so I wandered down the street looking for a cold beer which I found in a quietish pub. But not for long. SLO is a College Town, and as such the evenings were student orientated, even on a Sunday like this……… so after a while I moved on……..to the Firestone Grill which everyone said was ‘amazing’.

Well amazing I’m not sure of, but busy…….. it was thronging with peeps all queuing for their meals. It did’nt take long for me to ascertain that this was another burger and fries place, but following the first rule of eating in a foreign land ie ‘eat where you see a lot of locals eating’ I joined the happy throng. Ordering a plain burger and fries with a side of onion rings and garlic mushrooms, I waited. 10 minutes later I was handed a large sack, which contained on inspection - a burger, and 3 mountains of the other items. I could have fed a family on what I had here. Finding a quiet corner I opened stuff up and it only took a few bites for me to realise I had ignored the codicil to rule 1 “ excepting in the the US of A where joe public would’nt recognise good food even if it was fed to him for free”

I could’nt eat more than a bit of each, greasy and tasteless all in one go. I mean what do you have to do to garlic mushrooms for them to a] not taste of mushroom or have a mushroom texture and b] not taste of garlic either! I’ve never eaten a MacDonalds [ever] and if they are sub par compared to this place they must be very bad indeed. I binned the lot and was alarmed to see a homeless guy dive right in, rescue the sack intact and make off with a gleeful look on his face. He must have had me under surveillance just knowing I was a Brit who would be unable to eat a smidgeon of my mega supersized portioned meal.

On returning to the HI I received pitying looks from the resident staff, who gave me a ‘we’d have told you about that place if only you’d asked’ sort of look and offered home brewed root beer [ghastly] and carrot cake, [very nice] in recompense.

The following day [a Monday] was to have been taken up with driving down to Avila and Jalama, but the ennui was back [if it had gone at all] and I felt down, and a little depressed. I decided there and then to abort my exploration of the middle coast and head back to the bits I knew and liked around Monterey.

Calling in at Morro Bay one last time, I decided that this was one place I’d return to if I had the chance, and maybe spend longer in the area [there were some places further out I should have taken a look at, they would have cured me, but I missed out on them] using Morro as a base…

Driving back down Lighthouse Avenue in Monterey was just like coming home and I stayed for a day or so, taking in another trip around the bay, looking for whales [without success, again] before moving up to Santa Cruz and negotiating the road system from hell like a pro.

I stopped in SC for another couple of days, and met up with Peter Capaldi from Swaylocks, whom I’d met in Big Sur. Had supper with him and his wife Pat, and very nice it was too. That night it rained, the first of the trip but I was zonked out at the SC HI… in a room of my own! The following day dawned bright and rain washed and I went and spent an interesting morning/lunch at the University field museum on the outskirts of the City, looking at sea urchins, abalone, sea otters and dolphins. This is where a lot of the Monterey aquarium work is done, away from the hordes.

Wednesday night came around and I found I had various others sharing my penthouse with me, including a penniless surfer who’d been sleeping rough around SC for weeks, but needed some quality shut eye. Transpires the local constabulary had been having one of their periodic clear outs of all the whackos, winos, wierdos and bums [of which there were many it had to be said] out from SC. Many had moved down from SF, presumably for the sea air and invigorating atmosphere. Actually SC is much sunnier and warmer than SF or Monterey. Unfortunately they hoovered up homeless students, surfers and people just passing through too. A couple of Swedes turned up and then a lady in her 50’s who seemed ok, until around 1 am when she suddenly decided to fire up a laptop and start rehearsing her song and dance routine. Ethel Merman she was’nt or rather she almost was…….. she was a ‘performance’ artiste… a term which to me usually equates with pretentious and crap. We managed to persuade her that 1am was’nt a good time to rehearse and would she please ‘Shut the fuck up!’ cos some of us wanted to sleep please. Luckily she went off and annoyed someone else, who and where I don’t know, because she did’nt come back until around 8.30 the next morning.

Have you ever noticed that with some people of an ‘artistic’ streak [singers mostly] are wont to break into their art at the mere mention of it. This one was no exception. One of the Swedes, no doubt trying to mend fences after giving her the bums rush the night before, made the mistake of what her act was. Without hesitation she launched into a rendition of – what? I don’t know, but as I watched my companions eyes glaze over, I made my escape.

Coming back into SF I called by Daniele’s studio, only to be told she’d gone over to the east bay and would’nt be back until tomorrow. Great. I’d come back early to help out and she’d buggered off for the day. Muttering dark threats I went and booked in at the HI at Fort Mason overlooking SF harbour and bay and spent the day wandering… something I’m good at. I was back in the ennui state again, and I found myself getting ready to leave, ditching stuff I did’nt want or need, packing the board away, having to buy another carrybag, because mine was’nt large enough. Friday came and went, but I caught up with Daniele and had supper with her where she gave me a charcoal sketch she had done and that I’d coveted the last time I was there. This was a large piece 5’x2’ and so we had to roll it up [in a Chinese restaurant no less] and find a tube. It was typical D.

Saturday morning was my last day and I was going to be flying out that evening, car back around 4pm. I spent the early part of the day out at Baker beach and then Ocean beach, just hangin…….. then after lunch over at the open house exhibition at D’s studio. She was on a high having sold a few paintings for several hundred dollars apiece. I wandered around and decided D’s stuff was among the best there, which pleased her. Then 3pm came round and it was time for me to make my goodbyes once again.

I ditched the car at the airport and staggered into the international departure area with my now not inconsiderable gear. Preparing for the worst I approached the desk only to find no queues and a surf dood to take my board off me. ‘I’ll take care of it dude. And I’ll make sure my mate takes it off the plane at the other end’ Wow! [and he did too!]

The flight was on time, the food was Ok, the films were ok, and I fell asleep somewhere over Canada and woke up just as we came in over the Outer Hebrides. Magic!

Checkout went ok, customs did’nt bother me, I even found my bus, eventually. It was 1pm Sunday 23rd of October, and I was’nt going to get home until around 10.30 that night, because of railway timetables, line working and all the other things that make travelling by rail on a Sunday in the UK such a long drawn out event.

I was back at work the following day, sort of. Rolled in around 11am and spent the rest of the day going through stuff. Around 3pm I crashed but made it home before I fell over.

Thus ended my fourth California trip [my third since 2001]. Will I go back. I’m not sure. Other places beckon, such as New Zealand and Patagonia. Both require a different MO I reckon.

NZ is so far away that if I go I want to be able to make the transition from tourist to live-about. So that means 6 weeks to two months, at least. Maybe even a whole year and do it properly. That means packing in work [no problem in itself, I’m ready to retire tomorrow J] Maybe I’ll leave it a while until I rearrange my life, off load all my acquisitions and downsize materialistically.

Patagonia has other problems and I suspect doing the independent traveller thing is going to be nigh on impossible what with my total lack of spanish and all. Although they do speak welsh there. Maybe a group trip would be the best way, although it will probably double the cost.

I would also like to take a look at Alaska, and at the other end, Antarctica…… whilst there is still time. India, the far east, Oz, Africa don’t really interest me any more. Not that I’d turn down a chance of a free trip though.

Also one has to face up to the reality that confronts us. Air travel is artificially cheap and causes great damage from an environmental standpoint. One can offset this by carbon banking ie planting trees that in time will sequester carbon dioxide, thus keeping things carbon neutral [having planted or caused to be planted some 200K trees over the years I suspect I’m ahead of the game. In my opinion, the cost of long haul is going to go up dramatically over the next ten years, short haul where there are alternatives such as the train will be taxed out of existence.

So the message is – get your travelling in soon, otherwise it may be unaffordable.

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