Week Seven – Officially back on the road again!

Day 42 - Monday
27.04.2009

Previously on Sarah and Gem’s travels…we are in San Fran, I am hungover (for a change) and Gem is on cloud nine as she has met Ky, aka Bird.

We trotted off to go and explore the city and we headed for Haight - the old hippy district where apparently the summer of love kicked off.
I took loads of pictures and we both generally soaked up the atmos trying to not do anything too strenuous as we were both knackered. We checked out Amoeba records, a mammoth CD shop that probably had every CD ever made available. Gem got very giddy and I thought it was cool too. We then went and chilled out at Golden Gate Park. This must also be known locally as “Drug Dealer Park” as we were offered everything from Tylenol to animal tranquilisers with a bit of prozac thrown in - nice.
That night we chilled and went to the cinema with the boys. The only thing that was on was Obsessed, with Beyonce. So, you know how some films are cheesy-bad but still have a few redeeming qualities? Well, this one does not. It was AWFUL. The acting was so robotic at one point Beyonce actually hit her head saying “doh-i-forgot-my-bag.” Hmm, I wonder what will happen when she goes back in to get it - Nothing good I’m guessing. The only thing that made it worth watching was that it had Beyonce in it (who is obviously fit) as well as Ali Larter who Gem is quite partial too. The two ended up having a massive cat fight with Beyonce headbutting Ali - brilliant. It’s completely worth it for its pure shitness.


Day 43 - Tuesday
28.04.2009

It was time to drop off the boys’ car (shame) and go and pick up our car - Bluey 2. As soon as we saw her we knew she was the one. Bluey 2 is a Ford Focus SES (I think) - fully automatic, central locking and all that bollocks, control panel on the steering wheel, sunroof and the cherry on the top - a subwoofer in the boot which produced really dirty bass. I immediately put on some Beyonce and cranked that mother.

We had decided to stay another day in San Fran as we hadn’t fully conquered it yet. We moved to our new hostel and then went straight out to what has now become my favourite activity so far - taking the tour around the island of Alcatraz.
I went on my own as Gem had already been. She instead went on I quote “the best date of her life” with Bird. Sob. It always brings a tear to my eye EVERY TIME she tells me this story.

I loved loved loved Alcatraz - all the history and the stories, plus it has been used in one of those many films of my childhood, Escape from Alcatraz. Dad, Rich, I really wish you could have been there. I took the audio tour and shot a shitload of pictures. What’s supposed to take two hours took me three and a half and even then I had to slightly rush towards the end to make the last ferry back.

That night we thought we’d carry on the coolness as I sorted for us to go to a baseball game. It was a home game for the San Francisco Giants VS L.A Dodgers with apparently quite a big rivalry with them being so close. I thought it was brilliant and a perfect piece of Americana.
I even got chance to wander around the whole of the perimeter of the stands to get the best photograph. It was banging. I also got chatting to a guy about the rules (it’s a lot like rounders) unfortunately though, I got him in trouble with his wife for talking to me for too long - if only they knew.


Day 44 - Wednesday
29.04.2009

It was time (yay) to pack up and make some much needed distance. It feels like we’ve been in California for ages and we get itchy feet even after a couple of days somewhere.

We dropped off the boys with their new car. It’s been fun but with so many different agendas in the mix I was looking forward to the two Oods hitting the road again. We decided to continue on Highway 1 as we both wanted a chance to drive it. It was brilliant, the car is really nippy. It was a really enjoyable drive. We put the subwoofer to good use and blasted out Pendulum while we raced through the windy cliff face.
After a while however the windy roads and the lack of a decent speed limit did get a bit annoying. Two hours is all we needed and then we just wanted to get some distance as it was taking ages to go a very short way.
We made our pit stop for the night in Eureka. The only good thing about this place is that you could extend the name to say Eureka-ka-ka-ka which we of course did on several occasions.


Day 45 - Thursday
30.04.2009

We left Eureka-ka-ka-ka and headed out of California to Eugene in Oregon. We rolled up on the Eugene Whiteaker Hostel - a bit hippyish, like the zen hostel in Gainesville but without the anal rules. We met Maggie a 12-year old who was staying there with her family. She spoke more like a 50-year old - not in a crackly voice kind of way, but in the way she had already had a crazy travelling life with all these stories to show for it.

That night we went off to Sam Bonds - a very cool local bar where you drink out of jars instead of glasses - I love that.
The whole area we were staying in was a bit unusual like that - suburbia with a quirky twist with random bits of street art everywhere.

At Sam Bonds that night there was a music act on called Rod and Muff. They played a divorced couple from the 70s who had reunited for the band but were using their songs to passive-aggressively take the piss out of each other. It was very funny - Gem and Mel, it was right up your street!
We proceeded to get pissed and played makeshift Scrabble. It was makeshift as we had to use a normal Scrabble board but Junior Scrabble tiles which were four times the size of normal ones. Due to this and the fact that we were pissed the game took a nosedive from its “serious” start and words were used and allowed such as: slag, gay, pedo, perv, clit, and cunttampon - hahahaha.

The night ended with Gem very pissed finding an unlocked bike and so going on a mini joyride, deciding to lie in a bush and do backwards somersaults, and then climbing to have a photo with street art - all the while, a police car was over the street from us. Not that we realised this at the time of course.


Day 46 - Friday
01.05.2009

Happy Birthday Paul!

We woke to another hangover. I’m getting repetitive strain injury from writing this - oh well.

We hit the road leaving Eugene and headed for Portland, and to the HI Portland hostel. On the way between the two, somewhere in Oregon, it’s worth mentioning that we stopped off at a Denny’s restaurant. Gem happened to be wearing her “Legalize Gay” t-shirt that she had found in L.A. Funnily enough; this is a t-shirt with the big, bold print “Legalize Gay” on it. Walking into this restaurant we had obviously forgotten our place in life to always hide who we are, as we immediately overheard derogatory comments coming from a nearby table who then proceeded to quickly get up and move. Throughout the meal we also got the most appalling service with the hostess man even ignoring me as I was paying - backwards, narrow minded, hick cunts.

Once in Portland we checked out the free paper as we always do and actually found something that was cool to do that we hadn’t already missed.
Battle Royale was playing at a local indie cinema and I had never seen it before but always wanted to so we were well up for that. I hit it up proper American style and got a box of candy and Gem tried to stay awake with a large black coffee - that’s what you get for getting so pissed young lady.
The film was very cool, fucking ridiculous but cool. The annoying thing was though that the disc that it was being played from kept jumping towards the end, with the last ten minutes to go being cut out completely. Everyone got up and must have thought “oh well I’ve seen it before” as they just left. I couldn’t believe it. Who pays for the cinema and then isn’t bothered when the end is missing. I went and asked what was going on and by the time they had figured it out the film was back on and playing when we were still in the hallway so we missed five minutes of it anyway - jokers. Basically the end part that I did see made no sense within context of the film and I am not sure it’s supposed to as its such a bizarre film in the first place.


Day 47 - Saturday
02.05.2009

Due to it being fully booked we had to leave the HI Portland hostel. The plan was to stay somewhere else in the area and leave for Seattle the next day. We couldn’t however find anything else in the whole of Portland that didn’t charge through the roof - we had stumbled upon some freakishly busy weekend for the city.
As it was only three hours away we opted to spend the day in Portland, and once we had done everything, bust a move straight to Seattle. Brillo - with that decided, we headed out to Portland’s great Saturday market. We had heard good things and we were right to do so as it was really cool. Gem got herself her 25th American Apparel hoodie of the trip, with some local artist’s design on it and we bought got leather wrist straps - a prerequisite for being a lesbian.
We then headed over to Powell’s; America’s largest independent bookstore (complete with its own map!) and Gem’s special place.
I left her to it and went and sat in their coffee shop and did some much needed blogging. It was the perfect time for it as the heavens opened and poured it down on all the unfortunate bastards outside. We stayed both writing for around four hours.
Before we left I got a chance to take a look at the lesbo section - there’s nothing like a good bit of lesbian fiction to get the imagination going. There was some awful stuff there with titles such as The Forbidden Feeling and In Every Port with equally terrible covers of sunsets and women riding horses all painted in muted watercolours - brilliant.
I of course got one of these, it’s called Whispers in the Wind and it’s about a photographer and her desire for her best friend, haha. What is it about lesbians and photography!?

We left Portland for Seattle and unfortunately a terrible Motel 6 - this freakishly busy weekend had moved over to there as well as all the hostels were fully booked.
Our entertainment for that evening was ordering pizza. It took us at least two hours to find somewhere to order that would deliver to us, explaining what vegan pizza was, giving up on this and deciding to drive somewhere, giving up on this, as we couldn’t and then persevering over the phone again till they got it right - talk about lost in translation, in America of all places.


Day 48 - Sunday
3.5.2009

As we were waking up without hangovers for a change we thought we’d get out there and explore the day fully. We checked out the info centre and there was loads to do. We went to Pike Place Market - famous for throwing fish around, which they did do with a little chant beforehand to go with it. We took a look at all the stalls too and I took pictures of random crap as well as many random people.
Something cheap that we’d found to do was go on the Seattle Underground Tour. To be honest we hadn’t read good reviews as “there were too many toilet jokes” we didn’t trust this though as there’s nothing wrong with a good poo joke - every other word that comes out of Gem’s mouth is something to do with poo, so she’d be right at home.
The tour is basically about how Seattle was first built on marshland at sea level and how they had terrible floods and sewer systems because of it (hence the toilet jokes) and when the city burnt down in the great Seattle fire, they rebuilt upwards creating an underground system - the underground that we were about to take a tour around.
We started with taking it seriously but no one was laughing at the tour guide’s jokes and with him continually commenting on this he was bordering on rude. Also the underground was just a section of tunnels with a few period photographs dotted around. It’s in times like these Gem and I like to loiter at the back of the group and take random pictures of ourselves, fucking around using the self timer. At one point we started recreating the poses of a couple of Japanese girls in front of us that for some reason were constantly posing on stairs and next to discarded planks of wood with the obvious peace fingers in the air.

On the way home we stumbled across a cinema so we thought “why not?” and went to see the new X-Men film, Wolverine: Origins. I’ve heard appalling reviews for this film but don’t listen to any of them as it was brilliant. I loved it and for those of you that do go, it’s got a secret bit at the end of the credits.
It’s also funny to mention that while I was at the cinema I was getting drunk texts off both Mum and Julie out separately, both in Derby getting pissed - dirty drunkards.



Good bye and good night all.

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