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Published: August 19th 2010
Haight Ashbury, San Francisco
Psychedelic artwork just around the corner from the acid heads and rather nice middle class houses When we first landed in California, we picked up our rental car and headed for our first gangsta LA stop, driving through Inglewood. Fast. We were on our way to stay at Barney's, as the good old Kent boy was putting us up for our first night. The plan was to stop at his in Pasadena for a night, then Em and I would drive up the coast to San Francisco, back through the national parks to Vegas, where we'd meet Barney and his girlfriend Annie, before returning to LA with them for three
days exploring the city.
That first night was the worse jet-lag we experienced the whole trip, as we crossed the dateline going west, losing a day. Our heads were soon out of the clouds though and spinning at the size of LA. It's a weird place, consisting of tens of little cities that are laced together with 8-lane stretches of Tarmac. But we were soon heading north on one of these out of town, leaving exploring LA until after Vegas. That first night we didn't get far but were lucky to check into a campsite in Carpinteria, just south of Santa Barbara. Lucky because everywhere was
Camping, Carpinteria
Lantern provided by the altruistic Robert full. Turned out it was Memorial Day weekend, which is a national holiday. And although nobody we spoke to seemed to give a toss about the veterans, they all gave a damn about packing up the pick-up and hitting the sites for a weekend of beer and burgers.
Carpinteria was a nice little place, and the guy on the pitch next to ours was a loud and genial local called Robert. He parked his coach-sized RV next to our little tent, and even brought over a lamp for us when darkness fell. We didn't ask, but Robert didn't want us enjoying our dinner of wine and nachos in the dark.
The next day we stopped at Santa Barbara, which is a gorgeous little town with a perfect climate and locals that are clearly comfortable. We wandered the beach and nosed about before driving on past miles of amazing coastline and stopping for the night north of Carmel. Clint Eastwood's mayor of that town and I've never seen so many amazing and completely different houses. They were all fairytale properties, but because of f'ing Memorial Day weekend there was nowhere to stay. So we ended up in the EL
Rancho motel, which despite being a bit of a run-down toilet was also cashing in on the public holiday and its prices were through the crumbling, porous roof.
Then onto San Francisco. We stayed for a few days here, camping at Candlestick Park which is the home of the 49ers American Football team. We went to Haight Ashbury and saw the old hippy hangouts, looked around the pier, saw Alcatraz and all the major sights. Perhaps the highlight was In-N-Out Burger though, as mentioned in The Big Lebowski. It's amazing; trust me and get a Double-Double. We also hung out in Golden Gate Park, where we got offered drugs twice within ten minutes of arriving. Which seemed fitting for the hometown of The Grateful Dead. There was even a block party/roller disco going on at two in the afternoon. This was much cooler than the Love of God festival that was also encouraging fried locals to hang out and dance in the park.
That's all for now folks. National parks, Veags and L to the mutha f'ing A to come.
Love you,
Bye!
x
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matt
non-member comment
If your going to San Francisco ...
Looking good .... but I see no flowers in your hair ;-(