On the road in California

Having left Portland (which I loved), spud is all antibiotic-ed up and we have picked up our vw halepua (not eddie, he was "in the shop"). We have travelled through the plastic world of LA (including a circa 1986 travelodge hotel room near LAX), we also detoured down to San Diego and to Seal Beach, a cute little seaside town in Southern California. It has been interesting finding places to park and sleep at on the side of the road, but thankfully we have thus far had no moustached officers flashing a torch in our window at 2am and asking us to move on. The downside to living in a vehicle is definitely the added difficulty inherent in maintaining personal hygiene.

A highlight of the trip came today when a 'bank of america' employee professed ignorance as to what "foreign currency exchange" meant. Actually, there was little admission of ignorance, some giggling and blank looks on her part, and eventually some advice to the effect that they would need to "order that in". By then, my spirit was broken and i simply could not be bothered enquiring as to why they would need to order me in US dollars to exchange for my AUS ones. Ahhh... small towns.

Today we drove the Big Sur, which was spectacular coastline but a bit of a long day as we had not booked accommodation ahead of time and given sheer cliffs on one side of the road and water on the other, there was no chance of pulling over for a kip. When we drove into Monterey (ahhh... back to the bright lights and taco bell signage), I almost leapt out of the car window with enthusiasm as spud suggested we splash out on a hotel room. Such is my desire for a shower which does not take place on a beach and my lucid memory of this morning's loss of dignity as i begged a cafe worker to let me use the staff toilet at 6:30am.

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