Lots of horses later...

... I'm in Tucson.  Between the friend I stayed with and some other friends of hers I got lots of riding and related stuff in last week, and it was great fun.  I learnt new things and enjoyed the gorgeous trails.  Those of you who are interested, and you know who you are, I'm sure we'll chat about it more, but I won't bore everyone else with too many details!

I explored a bit too.  Last Sunday I went for a beautiful bike ride in Long Beach with my host's family, and enjoyed meeting them all.  On Friday we tripped up to the Griffith's Park Observatory, which is actually a really cool place.  For absolutely free, you can look round enough exhibits to last you hours and get lots of info out of the friendly staff.  The shows in the planetarium are not killer expensive either, and we enjoyed the one we went to see a lot.

It's also a pretty building and there's some nice views from up there:

We also did some film watching at home and it was apparently a week to discover a bunch of very cool women, in various ways.  I hadn't seen Rabbit Proof Fence or The Hunger Games before and they're both really good, not least because of the strong, moral girls who star- both the actresses and characters are amazing role models.  Obviously they're totally different films, one being based on a gritty true story about colonialism and good ol' social services, and the other a fantastical action, but they should both be compulsory viewing nonetheless (and both contain themes about what big sisters will do for their little ones, which as everyone knows is a lot :D).  And I'd never even heard of Temple Grandin, let alone known there was a film about her.  She (unless I'm the only one who didn't know!) is an autistic woman famous for her work in animal rights and in changing the US slaughter industry, and later for her autism advocacy.  She's quite something, but the film about her is worth watching just for the incredible piece of character acting from Clare Danes who plays her.

When we went to view a horse for a friend of my host's, the woman selling him turned out to be pretty interesting too- she works as a weapons trainer and in medieval combat productions.  She's also friends with one of my favourite authours from when I was younger, who wrote books about lady Knights!  And now I've met one, or the closest you get these days, who knows her.  It was fun.

More fun than what happened the morning before I left, anyway, which was both my host's dogs getting skunked and then merrily careering around the house spreading the smell.  We had to hose them and scrub them with a hydrogen peroxide mix, this all being at 6am whilst needing to leave for a show.  I take it all back about enjoying North American wildlife.

The smell was pretty faint by that evening, and we said goodbye over chocolate wine and then yesterday morning I took a bus to Tucson (hitching is not only illegal in Arizona but seems to actually be enforced that way, and I also had no clue how I was going to escape the mass that is LA), through desert and rising heat and lightning storms at sunset.  My Couch Surf host here is lovely, and has even cut my hair for me!

So far, I like Tucson (based on one day wandering around).  It has some pretty buildings although overall its quite functional, nice diverse restaurants and shops, easy to use buses, and a very friendly library (back in one again!).  Also, cacti:

I've seen these exact leaves in the supermarket- haven't tried them yet but I'm sure it will come up.

It is hot, though.  But that probably goes without saying.

Los Angeles

For the next two weeks, you're only hearing from J.  Due to that very bald and angry guard giving me extra time in the US, but the organisation we wanted to volunteer for in Arizona having very limited resources/space at the end of August (because we were late applying, natch), C and I are going to be spending two weeks each with No More Deaths, but at different times.  On the 1st of September he has to leave the country and I'll be joining him in Mexico a fortnight later.

So I have to amuse myself in Southern California for a while.  C having left me alone for the proverbial five minutes, no one will be surprised to learn I've found some horses.

After our last post, we spent one more night star and shooting-star gazing, sleeping out by the roadside near the top of a hill off Route 1.  It was completely magical, amazingly warm, and we woke up here:

Right above that famous pacific coast fog- felt like you could have stepped onto it.

Then we hitched south, and arrived in LA that evening- in this:

which is a 1962 Chevy Station wagon with all the original lowest option insides.  A proper rattly old American roadtripmobile.  It was great.

We spent a day mostly in our hostel, swimming in the pool and eating and drinking all the free stuff they handed out- including champagne though it was not unlimited!  For such a cheap place you really did get a lot, even if it was basic and tacky (tacky'n'proud, I think, and we were in LA after all so thoroughly enjoyed it).  One theory is that the downside was the area it was in, where apparently we'd get shot if we set foot.  While we were there (notably unshot) they told us not to go Downtown or we'd get eaten alive.  Downtown had their own bogey-district.... and so on.

I don't think I'm a reckless person.  I'm also well aware that I'm visibly a tourist and as such easy pickings, and also that people really do get caught in the cross fire of random shootings in LA.  But not every day, right?  And thousands of people actually call this city home and spend every day here.  At times in my life I've realised that I've wandered down the wrong alley- so I've wandered out again. sharpish.  I'm not saying bad things don't happen and that they aren't sometimes concentrated in a few places, and that its worth having a bit of common sense and being aware when you are a potential invitation to all kinds of things.   But a lot of people seem to have got a lot of fear from somewhere, and be suffering more from that than from anything happening.  And they're rarely the people who are actually in danger.  And terrible things can happen absolutely anywhere, you cannot completely protect yourself no matter what districts you avoid.

With C gone (at least, he headed towards the Greyhound station.  Who knows if I'll ever see him again?! :p) I headed up to Glendale to meet an old friend and trainer of one of my room-mates and co-students from when I lived in Maryland.  She (the roomie) is not in California any more, though she is making lots of art you can look at here if you like pretty stylised ponies :).  But she has very kindly set me up with an amazing lady who runs a stables out here and I spent yesterday riding and meeting all the people and horses.

Today I dutifully explored Hollywood, with that sensation of ticking something off a list.  It was ok, but getting around LA without a car is time consuming and difficult which doesn't encourage aimless exploring- it really is a massive, sprawling place.

Back to the ponies tomorrow, I think!

San Francisco and some of Route 1....

and Sore Knees.  Or to be more exact, just one knee, J's right one.  Nothing to panic about (hopefully), but during hiking or heavy bag carrying something has tweaked and going up or down steep hills is a bit tricky.  We mention this only because it's limited things we've been up to in the last wee while- especially with volunteering in Arizona coming up and hoping to actually rest and get better rather than just not get any worse.

(And I've been REALLY GOOD.  I AM RESTING THE HELL OUT OF THIS KNEE.  SO THERE TO EVERYONE WHO THINKS I DON'T LOOK AFTER MYSELF- J

Saying nothin'...- C)

This in mind, we breakfasted on Dim Sum (otherwise known as Nom Nom) and went for a slow, leisurely explore of a couple of districts of San Francisco on Tuesday- mainly Mission and Haight.  Lots of Spanish to practise in Mission, and Haight was pretty but mostly just a street of shops.  If you know the right people, it could well still be the hotbed of alternative culture it was in the 60s, but to walk through it mostly just makes you think of the wisdom of Danny.

Continuing the Withnail and I theme, that night's Couch Surf host's band were named after a famous scene- and are well worth a listen.  He also found us some cheap and tasty Thai dinner, and C explored China Town's markets more the next day while J rested her knee and typed bits of novels and emails that might as well have been.

China Towns are interesting.  They're so much more samey all over the world than other emigrant-gathered areas.  But there must be differences between them.  And is there something about East Asian culture that has caused people to so often set up that way?  Or is there something about Western Culture that provides the niche?  Can someone recommend a book to answer these questions?

That evening we went to a Mission district political resource centre to see a documentary about education in Arizona.  It is a very interesting film, inspiring and depressing in equal measure, and well worth a watch even if you never intend to visit Arizona.

On Thursday we went to the Beat Museum, once again getting Student Rate to an attraction because we are young and scruffy and hardly going to refuse it when it's offered.  We both enjoyed it a lot, maybe more than we were expecting to- and does everyone know On The Road is a movie now?  Everyone who cares anyway?  Yep?  Just those of us who've been hitching for two months surprised by this?  OK.  And looks like it might actually be pretty good, judging by the director.

What is also out now in movie format is Dr Seuss' The Lorax.  This was not in the Beat museum, however there has been a few Lorax related things on our travels, from people's tattoos, to being in various children's sections of the bookstores we always end up in, to large sand sculptures in the centre of downtown Portland.  We cannot vouch for the movie but if you haven't read the book it is really good and has a pretty cool message.  Suppose that goes for On The Road as well but you know...

On Thursday evening we moved over to another Couch Surf host in Oakland.  We got on really well, and had a couple of lovely evenings with comedy shows, political chats and amazing food (a seemingly never-ending conveyor belt of cookies and cakes and other baked marvels).  Also local beers and California's famous $2 "Two Buck Chuck" wine (Not as bad as you might think.  Got a real cork and everything.)

We stayed an extra night with our Oakland friends, as we had nowhere else worked out and they are lovely people.  But on Saturday, still with nowhere to stay and J's knee still not great, we decided to hit the road sooner than planned*.

That crazy old woman in Aberdeenshire was right, and when you leap into something, things do work out.  The first night of our travels on the completely spectacular Route 1,

 a friendly local from Half Moon Bay let us camp on his field.  The next, we went swimming on a beach south of Santa Cruz, where a boat made of concrete ran aground (perhaps unsurprisingly?) on its maiden voyage

and then later, a hitch drove us to meet a friend of his and we all ended up in a nearby campsite with some traveling surfers watching shooting stars in a bottomless sky and communing with a raccoon family who were deeply irked we'd intruded so near their own personal tree which they use for peaking out of like the adorable cartoon characters they definitely aren't.

We stuck with our companion today, and got breakfast at Denny's, making J ridiculously excited as its not only a very Americana thing to do but a line in a song by her favourite Reggae band (details upon request).  We then and returned to our original hitch's house, where this is posted from.  It's full of welcome and good conversation, and also a rabbit called Death Ray- look:

We'll camp again tonight and hope for more meteorites, and then carry on the road tomorrow.  The guy currently hosting us mentioned at one stage that he was driving us past several towns on our way and we might 'miss them'.  We were genuinely a bit confused.  We're not here for the towns- it's the highway that's famous right?



     *For anyone who does not know, hitch-hiking is a lot easier on a pulled ligament than you might imagine.  The 'hiking' part is minimal and the sitting in cars or on bags inventively insulting people who won't pick us up part is quite large.

We're officially 'drifters' now...

This week has been even more up and down than usual.  Breakfast at golf clubs one minute and homeless in Berkeley watching films about brain transplants the next (haven't we all been at that stage in life, right?).

It all begins (well, since last time we wrote but that sounds less dramatic) when some very wonderful friends of C's family came to pick us up from the motel in Sacramento.  We were whisked straight off to explore the beautiful Lake Tahoe-

 it really is so gorgeous and clear you just want to dive straight in, but sadly you're not allowed to because there's speedboats everywhere and you'd end up getting smacked in the head like a manatee.  Mutter grumble from J, who thinks swimming should be proritised everywhere, not stuck in little corners.

After a lovely drive around the lake we went back to our friends' house and were treated to an amazing meal followed by a trip to a yogurt place, where you get to fill your yogurt pot from very exciting squirty things on the wall and then cover it in fruit or brownies or other exciting things.  In the morning, post tasty breakfast at the nearby club, we bent our host's ear off about politics so much that he dumped us by the side of the road pointing towards Yosemite national park.  Figuring we weren't doing much for the next few days we thumbed a lift into the valley there.

Yosemite is beautiful.  Although hitch hiking is pretty normal, without a car you are a bit more limited to hikes you can get to from the central valley.  We did a couple of these after luckily managing to find a campsite, sweating profusely in the heat but it was well worth it for the views.



The valley is a strange place to be though.  There's stores, a luxury hotel, a swimming pool, a creche (why would you take your kids out somewhere like that and then pay someone else to spend time with them?!).  One company has monopoly on all these things so they're pretty expensive too.  And its interesting how many people don't actually venture out of the valley and on any hikes- even though lots of them are not very hard work.

We camped with some lovely people though, a father and son on the son's first camping trip and a tiny person from Cleveland, Ohio (Despite us being from another continent, people seem more startled to meet her).  Having had nothing but success with tiny people from Cleveland before, we invited her to join us in hitching out when we found out she'd been stuck in Yosemite for three weeks and seemed to have a hairline fracture in her foot.

With three people and between us huge amounts of luggage there was a good chance hitching was going to go slower- but a guardian angel soon descended and drove us all the way to his hometown of Stockton.

Stockton, CA, is not recommended as a tourist destination.  It used to be the murder capital of America but now does not even have that claim to fame is just very high in murders, along with unemployment and general social decay.  Also, if you go there you keep having this interaction.

Stockton resident: "WHY IN GOD'S NAME ARE YOU HERE?  LEAVE!  LEAVE!  THE FREEWAY IS THAT WAY!"

You: "Is it really that bad?"

Resident (calls across parking lot to someone not previously involved) "Dude, would you live here if you had any choice?!"

Resident 2: "Hell no!  No one in their right mind would!"

and so on and so forth.

In fairness, we only heard gunshots ('Stockton crickets') once in the whole couple of hours we were stood chatting with our lift's friends outside a store.

And in contrast to its reputation, thanks to our lovely lift, we had a great time in Stockton!  Good company, a nice dinner, and then he took us out to his friend's very nice house a bit out of town to stay the night in style*.  We may even meet the folk from Stockton again in Mexico, and indeed the lovely I. from Ohio has promised us she will be there, and now it's on the internet so she can't go back on it :p.

The next day it was off to Berkeley where I. had a lift share in the morning to get her on the way home.  This is where we ended up wandering the streets and watching a film about a mad scientist and women and cats and things that was being projected in a parking lot.  Such is life (which is a famous saying amongst bush rangers).

We camped out and in the morning it was time for us to split with our new friend and bother some more upstanding members of society- this time old friends of J's parents.  We had a great day with them, eating lovely food, bookstore exploring, and setting the world to rights.  They even dropped us off on the doorstep of a Hostelling International hostel where we spent last night.

The Wharf and Pier 39 are a big thing in San Francisco, so we wandered down there yesterday evening and ate clam chowder out of bowels made of sourdough (the real challenge is can you eat the bowl as well, we being as tight as anyone raised in Scotland were determined to succeed but a lot of people seemed to be abandoning half a loaf, making you wonder why they don't just get a normal bowl).  Apart from this, and the sea lions that gather near Pier 39, there's not huge amounts to recommend from the area.  You kind of have to go there to see what its like, but its madly crowded and busy and everything is expensive or kitsch.  The sea lions, though, are actually pretty special.

This is Professor Snugglesworth.  He and his team are conducting important research into whether or not humans are intelligent.  Results so far are poor.  Humans show no ability to scratch any part of their body with their back flippers, and rather than language seem only capable of making 'ooo' and 'ahh' noises.  Perhaps with patience they could manage simple tasks such as giving Professor Snugglesworth fish.

In our defence, the researcher and his team were pretty adorable.

The hostel had no space tonight so we are hoping the magic of Couch Surfing will help us out, whilst San Francisco seems to be just as hot as anywhere else the state, not the cold and fog we were promised- hopefully it'll start soon because J was quite looking forward to a respite from constant sun cream and sweating five minutes after showering.

-------------


*NB: This came about after a phonecall he made whilst we were all in the car, not telling his friend he was on speakerphone.  It went like this:

Driver: "Hey man.  I'm on my way back to Stockton, and I have a favour to ask you."

Friend, sounding long-suffering: "You picked up a drifter didn't you?"

Driver (pause, then):  "I didn't pick up 'A' drifter... I picked up three."