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Published: October 13th 2008
Saturday 27th September to Tuesday 30th September, 2007 I had every intention prior to my arrival in the United States of utillising what little spare time I was likely to have by exploring this vast country as much as possible. I still have those same intentions but as I perhaps should have expected a combination of other commitments allied to a ‘sod it, the sun’s shining, let’s go the beach’ have meant things haven't quite gone to plan. However, with Phil away for the weekend I was finally prepared myself for my first mini road trip.
My intended destination was to be the seaside town of Santa Barbara, one hundred and twenty or so miles north of Long Beach, further north if time permitted via the renowned and ingeniously named Pacific Coast Highway and at just after nine on another sunny, hot Saturday morning I loaded the bike into the back of the Jeep (why I don't know because it never came out again) and hit the road.
First stop once I’d cleared the mayhem of the Los Angeles Freeway system was Santa Monica and having finally managed to find a reasonably priced place to park I took
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Where's Rod ?a walk along the sea front, past the hobo’s still sleeping on the dewy grassed promenade with their shopping trolley’s overflowing with a lifetime’s possessions parked alongside to the end of the famous pier, by now shrouded in a damp sea mist that had descended on the town since my departure and which in turn gave the place, with it’s deserted pier fairground an eerie feeling of ghostliness. Before leaving I made sure to stock up on Branston Pickle, Strong Pickled Onions, Heinz Tomato Soup and Ambrosia Custard from the famous Tudor House English store on 2nd street, perhaps not surprisingly finding the usual customary ‘have a nice day’ had been replaced by a grunt and very little else from the scruffily tattooed cockney shopkeeper.
The drive up the coast hugging PCH was leisurely, interesting and somewhat surprisingly for me enjoyable and spoiled only by the misty clouds that had continued north from Santa Monica thickening as they went and which foiled almost any chances of an ocean view. After half an hour as I approached Malibu I came across a handful of demonstrators stood at the side of the road holding variously worded anti war, anti Bush placards
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Here comes the bride. Santa monica pier. spelling out slogans like ‘Honk for Peace’ and 'No Blood For Oil' and such was the intrigue created by these people who would spend their weekends stood roadside for hours on end that I pulled in to speak to them ?.
Introducing myself as a British journalist documenting a road trip through California (well it was true apart from the journalist bit) I asked them what could possibly make them want to spend their Saturday's partaking of such a pointless past time. Demo's of one kind or another take place seemingly everywhere over here but that still didn't stop me wanting to know exactly what makes these people tick. The bespectacled, headbanded sandal wearing hippy in his mid fifties with silver hair cascading over his shoulders informed me proudly that he spends four hours each and every Saturday stood in the same spot holding his board before being relieved by an accomplice with similar ideals for a similar shift. What satisfaction or feeling of achievement does he get when someone pips their horn is anyone's guess ? The woman stood with him with her floppy cotton hat dangling in her eyes was obviously confused as to why she was
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Santa Monica pier. actually there. She was holding a placard renouncing the War in Iraq, spoke with an almost bitter hatred for Mr Bush, his entourage and his leadership skills and yet when I asked her how she was going to vote in the forthcoming elections and expecting a reply of "Obama of course" her smile was replaced by a blank expression, a shrug of the shoulders and an expressive "Ohh, I dunno yet".
As I returned to the Jeep the old hippy shouted after me "and tell them I live in Jim Morrision's wife's house" as if that would change my opinions on anything and having left them with a few long toots honking for peace I proceeded up through Malibu and beyond. A short while later and as quickly as it had arrived the mist cleared and I found myself in bright warm sunshine and immediately noticed an arrowed sign with the words Paradise Cove pointing to a road on the left. I turned off and went down the windy track through thick woodland before arriving at a womanned barrier where I negotiated a free fifteen minute park. It wasn’t Paradise, it was definitely a Cove but certainly not Paradise.
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Still sleepin'. It was a beach, not a particularily nice one at that served by a touristy bar come restaurant with a car park packed with lunchers and sun worshippers vehicles. What was bizarre however was how the spot was situated smack bang in the midst of a break in the mist. A couple of hundred yards to either side of where I stood as you looked out to sea you could see a dense grey wall that was cut off almost square about fifty yards above the surface of the water, quite a sight and as soon as I turned back onto PCH and the fog returned I realised exactly why they called it Paradise Cove.
I continued north past the Point Mungy State Park where the yellow mountains dropped vertically to the roadside, the Naval Air Base at Point Mungu and through the farming town of Oxnard where all that appeared to be sold from the numerous retail units that lined the highway was tractors, scarifiers and combine harvesters before stopping for some lunch at the seaside town of Ventura where I ate a bowl of watery fish soup in the seafood restaurant situated at the foot of the
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Life's a beach. rickety old pier. The mist was well and truly set in and a cool wind was blowing in off the sea. It reminded me very much of Cromer on a cold November afternoon although in reality it was probably about thirty degrees warmer but sitting outside in just a tee shirt and shorts in the restaurant's only table not protected by a sheet of plate glass it sure felt bitterly like it.
Once the Jeep's heater had thawed me through I headed inland to the town of Ojai, a quaint little town with an Spanish architectural influence which had to all intent’s and purposes over time been successfully hijacked by an invasion of artists, writers and thespians. Despite a population of just on 8,000 it's noted residents included in a long list of celebrity names including Anthony Hopkins, Larry Hagman, Ted Danson and Julie Christie as well as film producer Tim Burton. Steve Austin, the six million dollar man and Jaime Summers, the bionic woman also fictionally lived there in the seventies TV show but unfortunately I didn’t catch sight of any of them, not least Steve or Jaime but did visit two or three of the dozens of
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Whatever makes you tick. small galleries that lined the flower covered walkways before I hit the road again up the 150 Highway towards Lake Casitas.
Upon seeing a sign for the lake I turned off the main drag and drove straight past the car park packed with day trippers busy munching on their packed lunches in silence as they stared out at the water. The road was tightly following the shoreline of the lake when suddenly out of nowhere I came across an encampment of hundreds of tents and noticed that the people mingling amongst them were dressed in an assortment of bizarre period outfits, all white frilly shirt sleeves and corsets. I thought I’d happened across another one of those American Civil War re-enactments so pulling up I shouted across to two guys and a girl near the fence and asked as to exactly what was going on.
“We’re pirates” the young wench shouted back giggling as she spoke “Why don’t you come join us and drink some rum?”
By now it was mid afternoon and as I wasn’t in a rush to get anywhere and so with the thought in my mind that this could prove interesting I parked
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Pumpkin pie. up, handed over the twenty dollar admission fee and entered. Within the confines of the tall chain link fence that surrounded the camp were dozens of makeshift stalls selling trinkets, ornaments, clothing and food and three separate stages where improvised bands, jugglers and sword swallowers entertained their audiences. Everybody it seemed was dressed in the manner of the theme and I could tell from the length of some of the facial hair on show that a lot of these people weren’t just dressed for the convention, they actually lived the pirate dream every day of their lives.
Eventually, quite by accident I met my inviters and welcomed their hospitality of a tot of rum from a flagon and a spot of chilled Newcastle Brown from a steel chalice as they entertained me with their own compositions about life on the high seas. The convention was stretching into Sunday and they invited me to return on my way back to LA but time was getting on I had to hit the road.
I finally reached Santa Barbara around sixish and having unsuccessfully tried to find a room in four motels along the sea front ended up in desperation as
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Sea mist over PCH. darkness fell checking into a far from satisfactory, overpriced and smelly flea pit run by an elderly Chinese couple at the wrong end of town and spent the night with a nice Italian meal and a few beers in the town’s touristy main street before ending it in a little dive bar by the motel. Real people with no pretensions, it could have been the Sea Horse and I felt quite at home.
The following morning began with a visit to Starbucks where I drank coffee chatting with a couple of girls who had both recently, they informed me, become sober. I always thought becoming sober was something you did in the early hours after a heavy session on the ale but remembered the Indian meal on my last day at the F & G offices when the adjacent building was jam packed with a lunchtime AA meeting and wondered what it was about this place that gave people so much reason to drink. Either that or why so many people felt the need to stop completely. Whatever happened to moderation ? Both in their mid twenties the girls had recently met at their own local AA meet and
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Ojai, home to the stars. when I asked why they considered their attendance to be necessary, especially given their relatively young age they replied that drinking vodka with breakfast was one of the main reasons. In a second my argument had gone.
When I finally left Santa Barbara I headed further north with the Danish influenced town of Solvang my intention destination and when I finally arrived thought I’d shrunk and driven into a real life model village. Solvang was the epitomy of ‘twee’, an assortment of quaint but unreal windmills, houses and shops, mostly crassly named such as Viking Tea Houses and The Royal Copenhagen Hotel which succeeded in doing nothing but making Debbie's Pancake House seem totally out of character.
In one of the shops that I sauntered into the jovial lady behind the counter upon hearing my voice asked where I was from and then for my opinion of her home town. I replied with exactly that word, “unreal”. It was strange to think that people actually lived their day to day lives in such a surreal place.
By this time I was getting peckish so I stopped at one of the numerous restaurants advertising smorgasbord lunches and asked
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Underneath the arches. for a table outside in the warm sunshine. The girl told me they couldn't serve me outside instantly making me wonder why they actually had tables and chairs placed there but that I could take me food out and eat it from a takeway tray. No problem. "You can have two visits to the buffet" were her last words before I approached the table and and after a light lunch I left the store with a large takeway box stuffed to capacity with cooked ham and turkey, my lunches were sorted for the following week !
The drive back to Santa Barbara past Lake Cachuma and through the Los Padres National Park was a spectacular route of winding mountain roads with sheer drops off the side that reminded me of days in New Zealand with Margy before I hit the freeway for the crawl back to LA. It was late afternoon but I still had one appointment to make. For the last couple of weeks on my commute to work I'd looked up at the bright orange billboard that flanks the 405 Freeway advertising a tattoo convention at the LA Convention Centre in downtown LA and that was where
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The Alamo in Ojai. I was headed.
When I finally arrived I entered a large room which was literally buzzing with the sounds of music, chatter and tattoo guns and spent a couple of enjoyable hours watching and meeting the mostly hispanic attendants. I finally emerged from the Convention Center as daylight was slipping into night and within seconds of emerging from the underground car park I found myself completely lost. Ground level amongst Downtown Los Angeles’ tower blocks allows no opportunity for searching for possible landmarks that could help guide you out of the concrete maze you are in nor for following your nose and with directional signs conspicuous by their absence I suddenly had visions of still searching in vain for the elusive 110 freeway come daybreak.
I’d just asked a young couple directions and been told I was heading the completely wrong way when I pulled up at a set of lights and, with my senses telling me they were either winding me up or were simply as lost as I was gestured to the Mexican man sat minding his own business next to me to wind his window down. I asked him directions for the 110 Freeway, he
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Piratesses ! thought for a second and then told me to turn left here, right at the next lights and that slip ramp would be right in front of me.
I slowly started to roll into the left hand turn lane when I was startled to a halt by a short, sharp, single and very loud blast of a siren, the sort that you would normally associate with an oncoming nuclear attack. It took me so by surprise that I braked instinctively before scanning my surroundings for where the noise could possibly have emanated. The only possibility I could see was a fast food store on the other side of the road and presumed that it was the hooter to tell someone their meal was ready. I started to roll forward again and the blast was repeated this time followed by an amplified Darth Vader style voice,
“Do not stray”. Huh ?
I was still trying to work out who or what it was, where it had come from and what it meant when the voice continued
“Cross that line and I will cite you”. WTF.
Totally forgetting all about mirrors I turned a full 180 degrees
and saw a white helmeted motorcycle cop with, despite the onset of darkness, the obligatory shades staring straight at me. He was looking straight at and talking to me. I waved a wave of apology and sat bolt upright and still in my seat until the lights changed and I slowly moved off expecting him to pull me over at any time but watched relieved as his indicator flickered and he slowly turned away.
With Lisa 2 having a doctors appointment on Tuesday I drove in to work alone. It was a bright sunny morning and I was feeling surprisingly fresh for the time of day as I motored up toward the dual bridges spanning the port area. Strangely for once the road was almost deserted, Metallica’s version of ‘Am I Evil’ had just come on the random selection of the iPod and was gushing out of the speakers and my mind was everywhere but where it should have been.
As I approached the second bridge I happened to take a glance a glance into my wing mirror and was aghast to see the flashing blue and red lights of a Highway Patrol Squad car following almost bumper
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Is she hiding someone with no underpants on down her top ?! to bumper in my slip stream as though he was hooked onto my tow bar, God only knows how long he’d been there. With three empty lanes to my right I quickly deduced he wasn’t interested in passing and that it was me he was after and having a hard shoulder to the left of me and a much bigger one on the extreme right found myself gesticulating into the mirror which side he wanted me to pull up. He made it perfectly clear in reply. I indicated and pulled carefully across the three lanes, slowed to a halt on a wide chevronned reserve and watched in the mirror as he pulled up close behind and proceeded to get out.
Staring out trance like at the road ahead I reached down, wound down my window and waited. And waited until I was snapped out of my trance by three short sharp knocks on the passenger window. Oops. Why on the movies do all the Cops go to the driver window yet in real life they go to the passenger side ?.
“Do you realize you were doin’ 74 in a 45 ?” he said when the window finally
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Piratessesses. disappeared out of sight into the door. Double oops, I didn't but such was my vacant mood I could well have been. Unusually he was alone and he bore more than a passing resemblance to a young Sidney Poitier, ebony skin and perfectly laid out white teeth shining brightly in the morning sun. For some reason I am still trying fathom I wondered if he had children back home sleeping in their beds.
How do you answer any question that begins “do you realize” ?. There are two possible alternatives, either you say “Yes I do actually”, which I quickly deducted was not wise in the current situation and which would be likely to incriminate myself even further into the shit than I already was or you answer the question with a question to the tune of “No I don’t officer, what speed was I doing”?. Not particularily clever either. I somehow managed to respond somewhere in between by saying nothing and pulling the biggest cow eyed face of apology I could muster, it was after all a fair cop as I'd by now deduced he could have been following me for anything up to a mile.
He
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It was lemonade, not rum. asked for my licence which I handed to him and then for my insurance. For some reason I opened the glove box despite knowing it to be empty bar the log book which I then lifted it up, placed back down and then explained that I’d only been in the States for three months, maybe in the further hope of some sort of sympathy vote, a slapped wrist and a caution and that my insurance documents were at home.
He asked me who my insurer’s were and I answered surprising even myself that I’d remembered their name.
“What, the very same AIG Insurance that went bust two months ago ?” He snapped back sharply
Oh shit. “Sorry” ? I replied
He repeated himself verbatim.
“They didn’t did they ?” I answered attempting to exaggerate my shock and surprise.
His response took me by completely by surprise and left me confused as to how I should have reacted. By joining in with his laughter, by calling him an utter tw*t, throwing the Jeep into drive and taking off or by simply leaning over and throwing all my weight into a clenched fisted smack in his
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Two thirds of ZZ Top. pristine pearlies.
“Nah, I’m only kiddin’” he snapped with a deadpan face before bursting into a laugh that would make any passer by think I’d just told him the world’s best ever gag. I couldn’t believe what was happening nor for that matter his crassness. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d cracked a really funny one liner and I'd like to think that despite my predicament even I would have joined in with his joviality but what he'd said simply wasn’t funny and I was in no mood for laughing, especially not when Phil informed me later in the day that the fine for my crime could be anything up to four hundred dollars as well as eight hours of my precious free time spent at traffic school !
On the slightly smaller plus side I'd had news that pictures on the faulty memory card had been recovered by the company in New York and that I'd received delivery of my very first book, 'Headin West - A New Life In The USA; The First Three Months', a hardback printed version of these very blogs.
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Lise
non-member comment
My GOD! you and the law!
You were over 30MPH above the speed limit?! I got a ticket for not yielding to a pedestrian, (I should have knocked the Daft Get over) fine was $175 and additional $100+ for the school, the good news is, you can do it on line, but have to spend the correct amount of time on each page, no rushing it. Thanks for the update, I never see you now, it's like you've gone back to the Port!