Young Man, There's a Place You Can Go

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On the bus to Flagstaff, a Pamela Anderson look-alike sat beside Mike and proceeded to chat him up. It was several years before he stopped bragging about it. We were out for the count, although there were a couple of babies that did their best to keep us awake. The bus could have crashed and we would have slept through it. At Flagstaff we changed bus for San Diego.

The nearest hostel to the transit centre in San Diego was the YMCA, so we checked in there. We soon lived to regret it. The place was heavily used by the army and consequently it was like an army camp. For example, the toilets were not in cubicles, they were all just in a row along the wall. We had to use the toilet in McDonalds! And with Village People being so fond of the YMCA, there was no way that we were going to use the open showers!

One thing that the YMCA did have going for it was a number of arcade machines, which used to dominate my youth - old classics like Defender, Battle Zone, Mr Do and Scramble. I was in my element, which was very sad.

The next day we checked straight out and found another hostel. We had to get out before I put all my remaining money in the Defender machine or something indescribable happened in the showers. Jim's Place was more of your normal hostel as the toilets and showers had doors on. The manager (who wasn’t called Jim) couldn't do enough for you - maps, information, advice etc.

All the food we were eating was starting to get too much for us and we agreed to stop pigging out at all those “as-much-as-you-can-eat” restaurants. We were probably already well on our way to ending up like some of the huge thirty stone slobs that seem to be so prolific in this country. To be honest, it’s easy to understand how you could end up like that here.

For our first non-pig-out night we went for a Chilli Burger, which was so mild it was laughable. If someone was to open a decent Indian Restaurant here, the Americans wouldn’t know what hit them!

One of our main adventures whilst we were in San Diego was a day trip to Mexico, which was just a few miles away. Another day, another country…

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Photos

San Diego Beach
Larking about

San Diego Beach
Still larking about

San Diego Beach
Still larking about

San Diego Beach
Still larking about