The journey so far...

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Inspired in equal measures by Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road' and 'Beavis and Butthead do America', I am travelling across the United States and loving it so far. My trip started about one month ago with a flight from London to New York. After getting off the plane, I stumbled straight across to Montclair, New Jersey - a town about half an hour outside New York City, where I would be staying and hanging out with my wonderful friends Tracy and Ruth for the next week. Among other things we did a little roadtrip out to Sunrise Mountain - a beautiful nature spot with amazing views, and somewhere that I never would have been able to see (or even know about) if it wasn't for my friends. I also had a chance to explore Montclair - a really cool town, with indie music shops, quirky antiques stores and funky cafes - and made it into the big old NYC for some wandering round.

Another thing about Montclair - it has a great, really dingy little liquor store on a corner near Ruth's place that fascinated me. It had shady looking characters hanging round outside it all day, and the one time I dared to venture in the store owner said (clearly annoyed at me loitering in his shop too long) 'You've been in here so long, now you're fucking me up!'. I didn't really know what he meant by that. But being told to fuck off by a shopkeeper was a surprisingly fun experience and I was tempted to go back for some more all-American abuse. Maybe the place is a gangster hangout? Don't forget that The Sopranos is set in New Jersey. One morning, from the spare room in Ruth's house where I was staying, I awoke to the sound of a man on the street below saying 'What about the money?', to which his friend (accomplice?) responded aggressively 'it doesn't matter about the money!!'.

Another classic quote, this time from a homeless lady: 'Welcome to San Fran-psycho!'. After my week in Montclair, I jetted across to the other side of the country to meet up with Emma and explore San Francisco. I've wanted to go to this place for a long time. Two main things drawing me there: 1. It's where many writers of the 1950s beat generation were based, including Jack Kerouac and Allan Ginsberg. These guys were rock and roll before rock and roll, they were hippies before the hippies! They more or less laid the foundation for a lot of modern alternative and counter-cultural happenings. 2. It's where the hippies were based! Haight street was the focal point of the 1967 summer of love, with people flooding there from all across the country. Since I'm a big hippie at heart, it felt like a bit of a pilgrimage coming to San Francisco.

Emma and I spent ten days sightseeing, hanging out, and soaking up the atmosphere of the city. And what an atmosphere it has. Sure, it's a built up city with skyscrapers and big billboards, and it'd be wrong to give a romanticised account of it being all 'peace, love, tolerance, diversity'. But it's also packed full of artists, peaceniks, free-thinkers, poets, lefties and crazy people. I felt pretty much right at home and absolutely loved the place. It's a bit like Brighton, blown up to massive proportions. It's actually a very beautiful city to look at; lots of trees, parks, and always the ocean in the distance. You can get old-school yellow cable cars up and down the hills. Highlights included biking across the Golden Great Bridge, a trip to Alcatraz (it's eerie! Rusty old cell blocks. You get to hear interesting stories about the characters like Al Capone who were imprisoned there), chilling out in Golden Gate Park, visiting the comic book art museum, and generally just hanging round cafes and bars across the city. Emma and I managed to restrain ourselves on the partying front to save money for sightseeing, although we ended up quite wasted on the second night we were there, thanks to people we met at the hostel buying us shots of jaegermeister. On the way back from this drinking expedition, myself and my newfound friend Marc from Switzerland bumped into a homeless guy, who insisted on reciting some poetry for us. He turned out to be an incredible poet. It was kind of sad because this guy was obviously on that borderline of being really intelligent/a genius of sorts and being mentally ill. But it was fascinating hearing what he had to say. After talking to the man for a while, a homeless friend of his showed up with a guitar, and I drunkenly insisted that he let me play it. I jammed out some random chords while the guy whipped out his harmonica and played along, occasionally stopping to shout joyfully 'Keep going man! That's some good Bob Dylan shit y' got going on there!'. Eventually we were making so much noise that a cop car stopped by and told us to quieten down.

In a tradition that I'm keeping up, me and Emma decided to wrap ourselves up fully in American eating culture and pig out on as much junk food as possible. This included chips, chocolate, ice cream, meals from diners, and fudge. For the coach ride I took across to Yosemite National Park (after saying a sad farewell to Emma), I had to sit in a special fat person wide seat. I've also taken to shopping for clothes at 'high and mighty' stores.

Yostmite National Park is BEAUTIFUL! Go there. Awe-inspiring mountains, giant trees, waterfalls, and all painted in autumn colours: reds, yellows, browns, oranges everywhere I looked. Words can't do the place justice so check out my pictures. While staying near Yosemite, I had a chance to do some mountain biking in Merced, which was slightly petrifying at first but a hell of a lot of fun once I got going. I want to try it again.

After Yosemite it was back to San Fran for one night, then down the coast to Las Angeles the following day. At the hostel in LA I met up with Swiss Marc, Dave and Joanne - people me and Emma had met in San Fran. I was only in LA for one full day, and stayed in Hollywood; a neighborhood where, despite what you might have imagined, you're more likely to get shot than talent-spotted for a film role. It's dingy and run down and there are a lot of crazy characters about, such as the man we saw who constantly strolls up and down Hollywood boulevard with his trousers pulled down and crown jewels hanging out, mumbling to himself; or another man with a pink wig, rollerskating about between the famous Hollywood stars that are engraved onto the pavement. LA did seem fun, but also plastic, commercial, and fake. I was only there for one day though, and just saw the one neighbourhood.

After LA, Swiss Marc and I decided to team up for a road trip in his car that's so far taken us through Death Valley (where we spent halloween! It's magical. Just miles and miles and miles of desert nothingness - dry, arid mountains and mud hills, cactuses, sand, valleys) and on to our current location - the glitzy Las Vegas, where you either get rich gambling or lose all of your money trying. Thankfully I'm a masterful gambler, and have so far made a grand fortune on $3 on a slot machine. So drinks are on me tonight.

Plans for the next week or so: after Vegas, Marc and I are heading to the Grand Canyon, then into Utah, to visit Zion and Bryce national parks, across to Denver to see the Rocky Mountains (so much nature! There's an abundance of amazing natural sites in this country), and then down to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

All in all, I'm having an amazing time. Despite getting a bit ill and feverish in San Fran (and subsequently having to pay $250 for a doctors check up and antibiotics! Thank god for travel insurance), I'm keeping well and working on my tan.

I'm missing everyone. Hope you're all well and happy! I'll write another entry soon so be sure to check back, or subscribe to the blog.

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"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime"
- Mark Twain

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