Monterey: "Heaven can wait we're only watching the stars" - Forever Young

Monterey Beach - seals in the background

 Now I am well aware that the original singers of this song are german and not from the USA, and that Youth group who covered this song are Australian. I am being dodgy and will use the fact that Jay Z just massacred the song by remixing and adding some terrible rap.

So I'm in Monterey for the next few days, Steinbeck country for those of you were are inclined towards American Literature (I even passed the river where the final sequence of "Of Mice and Men" is set). Well at first glance I'm completely in love with the place. Hey, John Denver liked this area so much he decided to stay here...permanently. Sorry that's rather tasteless and no one likes plane crash jokes.
Still, it's a gorgeous place and I could easily see myself living the kind of life outlined in Tortilla Flats (although I would love to hang out with Danny from the novel, I don't think I'd have the tolerance of he or his friends who regularly down gallon bottles of wine).

Matching the scenery in Monterey

A bit tired to do a proper entry today (probably something to do with getting up at 3am this morning to Skype with the parentals and 4am for Brendan. Crazy.

I will however share with you a poem I wrote while waiting for the train today. 
"I wish all RV's would spontaneously combust" (works to a general country/western tune, I recommend Tim Minchen's "the Good Book" for an idea)

I wish that all RVs would spontaneously combust
I say this in America, where "In God we Trust"
I hope that someday soon I'm going to leave them in the dust
With their owner's lookin' helpless an' their engines turned to rust

Watching the sunset with Franke

I say this 'cause the drivers seem to drive when they are high
They hog the road (they're so damn large) and never let you by
10 miles neath the speed limit? I guess they might get nigh
The frustration brings an angry little tear unto my eye

So please dear God almighty let the RV's all explode
Someone attack the factories and then get the mother load!
And to all the scumbags to'om* I dedicate this ode
Please find yourselves a smaller faster transportation mode
 *to'om = to whom abbr. 

Proper update later!

The lone pine

Squirrels, sneaky

Seahorses from the aquarium

Stanford: "I wish I could go back to college, life was so simple back then" Avenue Q

Hello all - sorry it's been so long since my last entry! I've been run off my feet. 
I'm currently sitting in a lovely cafe in a shopping centre in Palo Alto - the home of Stanford University (will be catching up with my Perth friend Lauren very shortly (I hope). This shopping centre is like nothing I've ever seen before, well not as far as shopping centres adjacent to universities are concerned in any case. So far I've seen Louis Vitton, Zegna and more
Still I suppose when annual undergrad fees are hitting the US$36,000+, one would expect people with significant sums of money to be present. Luckily, for a mere three dollars I was still able to purchase a hot chocolate which is roughly the size of my head. I am pleased. The campus here is just amazing - what other campus do you know that has a Rodin sculpture garden? I was particularly impressed by the casting of his Gates of Hell (which I believe I may have seen in the Rodin exhibition in the NGA quite a few years ago now) - and wandering around the campus made me quiet nostalgic for undergrad life (not like I'm not carefree at the moment, I just loved undergrad). The sheer number of facilities and faculties here is pretty damn impressive. I think I passed a building advertising the faculty of Slavic languages. It really makes the range of what is offered in Australia (well some unis I can't comment for all of them) pale in comparison. So,  I have a few days to make up!

 However, before I start on the fun I'm having in SF, there were a couple of things I forgot to mention in earlier posts but will now because they are cool (to me at least). Due to my adoration of mountains and my attempts to be vaguely competent at begginer climatology, imagine my delight when I saw the rain shadow effect occuring! This happened twice, once in death valley where I saw the clouds get divided and streak off in varying directions because they mountain peaks of the Panamint range wouldn't let them continue as normal and in Owen's Valley where we saw the Sierra Nevada holding back, all along their range, some pretty nasty looking clouds (apparently that day in Yosemite they got about a foot of snow). It just looked incredible. See australia, this is why there should be some serious tectonic/volcanic activity. Everything would be much cooler, if slightly more dangerous.

 SF: "If you're going to San Francisco. Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair"
- Mama's and the Papa's San Francisco 
Dear contemporaties. I am sad to say that as of today the 12th of April, your humble narrator has been in San Francisco/Bay area for a total of six days. During these days, at all times, she has failed to wear a flower in her hair.
Well an early start saw me grab a lift with my friend Paul (a fun little 17 year old (that you'd never guess was younger than 23)) to Merced. We wandered around, drank bad coffee and then almost missed the train because of poor signs and the sneaky sneaky fact that the tiny town of Merced has two train lines. Very deceptive. But on the train I went and off Paul went back to Yosemite. Unfortunately my day ended a lot better than Paul's did - I heard from him about two days after he had dropped me off; he'd been driving around in Yosemite and his car slipped on ice and flipped off the road into the forest. The poor thing now has a broken pelvis, femur and his face is a bit messed up due to the fact that his car is old and lacked air bags. The paramedics couldn't believe he was in one piece as his car was completely destroyed. He's going to be fine, is in good spirits, but it's going to take a while to recover totally.

 Anyway, the rest of my day was great. I met my first SF host Walee who was just delightful. I dropped my stuff off at her place which was located on the edge of the city centre and a region called the tenderloins (it used to be a butchery district) and headed down the road to the Asian art gallery which had amazing snuff bottle collection (chinese), Indoneasian daggers and Japanese minature carvings (for fun) and samuri collection (clothing, masks and weapons).
After this I caught up with another friend I'd made in yosemite (he was up there with his parents), a fellow originally from Montreal now residing in SF working as a 3d animator. We went out to a lovely asian-fusion place in Haight-Ashbury (there are very distinct suburbs in SF, moving one block along can feel like stepping into a new city entirely) which is where the hippy movement was born and aside from there being a conspicuous smell of pot in the air, it was lovely. Bumped into some of Gab's friends as well (also animators who work for Tidbit? Titbit? I can't remember the name, but they are famous for convincing George Lucas to do something in Jurassic Park that was revolutionary. Anyway they were lovely and had just finished working on the 3rd twilight movie! (At first I was very impressed, but in all fairness every second person you meet here either seems to be working at adobe, at google, at twitter, at bit-torrent (yes they do some things legitimately), facebook or at some small start up company.

Anyway after dinner, we went to pick up Gab's little whippet (it doesn't like being left at home) and Gab gave me a really nice tour of SF in a convertible - not a bad way to see the city and in any case " Cruisin' round SF with a whippet on my lap" has a nice ring to it

I was planning on writing a lot more right not but I have to meet up with the lovely Lauren Hallett so you all will have to wait for more!

Stay tunred for
Day 2 - Exploratorium (us and everyone else), wandering around Presidio. Clothing optional beach. Gum trees everywhere (planted with Monterey Pine and Cyprus to make the park look bigger, now a big weed problem surprise surprise) cemetery, sculpture and inspiration point. CS meet up!
Day 3 - Zip lining hilarity, Chinatown, Coit tower and Alcatraz
Day 4 - Golden Gate Park, the gayest place in the world (seriously), a non David Lynch moment
Day 5 - Frolicking on Angel Island, how America is oddly proud of the wrong things
Day 6 - On a mural mission in "The Mission", getting soaked and bananagrams.

(Day 7 is today in Palo Alto :) Miss you all - new photos up!
B

Rodin sculpture garden

Berkeley Bells

The berkeley bear

"Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains?Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?" Colour of the wind Pocahontas

I love Americans. I really do - I just had dinner with an absolutely lovely couple who live just outside of Yosemite. To me they embody the best of the kind of people I've met recently - happy, warm, witty enthusiastic and genuinely kind. 
I've met so many who are great that it completely wipes out, in my mind, the people who live up to the stereotype of "ignorant American" (i.e. guy on the bus who stated "Well, the USA really sucks, but I'm sure it's better than anywhere else." Well done, moron).

SO after waking up in Death Valley and getting a funky picture of a moon set while the sun was rising we wandered around in the Mosaic Canyon and then headed for Owen's Valley. Owen's valley and the towns in it (June Lake, Bishop, Independence) were just lovely, and how could they not be considering they had the Sierra Nevada mountain range behind them? Well one thing certainly bucked the trend which was the Manzanar War Relocation Center - an area, just in front of Mt Whitney, the tallest mountain in the range - this centre was a Japanese internment camp set up after Pearl Harbour was bombed. The thing I found particularly rich about the situation was that all japanese, whether they were born in the USA or not were put in the camp because they threatened national security. Imagine their surprise a few months/years later when they were asked whether they would volunteer to fight loyally for America. Either they're American enough to fight for the country or their Japanese enough to be a threat.

It was also interesting driving through some of the ghost towns in the area which had become ghost towns not because any industry had failed, but because LA had pinched all their water.

Anyway a significant portion of the day was spent hanging out in a hot spring found near bishop. It was a bit of an experience being in my swimmers in a landscape surrounded by snow capped mountains. Beautiful though. Getting out was...not beautiful. After I was all swum out we headed to June lake which was freezing and when we popped into a pub for dinner I was greeted with a "Little lady, you should really be wearing a coat"
Aww small town America,people are so lovely :)

That night saw car camping again, mainly due to laziness rather than cold, but it turned out just as well because the ice forming on the car window was the thickest so far! The next day saw us meet up with Laura's parents (Laura was a friend on mine in Perth over from the States on a fulbright scholarship) in Ridgecrest which was lovely and crashing, after driving through the red rock canyon and seeing massive windfarms silhouetted against the sky (which immediately reminded me of the hymn Jerusalem) with another friend over in Bakersfield.

The next day: SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK.
This park was just exquisite, from the wonderful curving drive up the mountains to the beautiful beautiful trees. There is something very humbling about standing next to, and touching, beings which are thousands of years old, and I must say, I do not take myself too seriously enough to stop myself from hugging them :). The sequoia groves were just magic and this feeling was magnified as it was so misty when we arrived making the whole experience very ethereal feeling. One of the things I loved most about the area is the silence, that and the beauty ...oh words fail me. Needless to say though, should I mysteriously end up living in California, there's nothing I'd rather be than a park ranger

Then onto Yosemite!
Yosemite was just stunning. I arrive in the park early (some others at the hostel had dropped me off) and I just wandered. Eventually I ended up in El Capitan (a massive granite cliff, popular with crazies who like climbing 3000 feet) where there just so happened to be a ranger lead tour of the park (the ranger, Sam (who I now will only think of as Yosemite Sam hehehe) was hilarious and gave me lots of crap for being Australian) which I joined in on. In the middle of Sam's spiel about El Capitan, out of nowhere came A BEAR. It was wonderful, and thankfully not too close. I despair of the morons who, not getting their cameras out fast enough when the bear was in front of us, followed it. Morons.
After the tour I started talking to two Americans who had massive cameras/lenses and I asked if they were professional. Nope, just massive enthusiasts. I perfer my little point and shoot to be perfectly honest. After some banter (pretty much standard with anyone I come into contact with ever) they said they had a job for me - near the yosemite falls there was this old dead tree with a hollow in it. They asked me to climb up and stick my head through, so I did. Hopefully they'll send the photo on and I'll pop it up, for now you'll just have to look at a picture I took today of the same tree. It was fun, they had fun reflector things to get the lighting just right, let's just hope my face complemented the rest of the picture, but considering I have two charming coldsores, I kind of doubt that.

Anyway, later I bumped into a lovely french couple who were in the hostel with me and we wandered over to Mirror Lake. Sadly by this time my camera battery decided to die so I won't have pictures for a while. Saw and heard a woodpecker though! Yay

The thing I really like about Yosemite are the original Native American names (apparently the term Indian now isn't PC but all of the park guides refer to them as such. Confusing) for various waterfalls/rivers. For instance Lake Merced (meaning Mercy) was once called something, I can't remember the name but it amounted to the following Lake "Will kick your arse if you don't treat it with respect" I think this is a fairly healthy attitude towards all things nature! :)

The waterfalls in Yosemite were truly brilliant, especially on day 3 after we'd had some snow. I'd love to come back in Feb sometime as apparently for two weeks, when the conditions are just right the sun sets behind Horsetail falls and makes it look like it's on fire. The waterfall is pretty great in any case and it starts falling as is it's want but then disappears into mist!

Anyway that's all for now! See you in San Francisco. Just need to find some flowers to put in my hair...
B

Death Valley: "As I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I take a look at my life and realise there's nothing left" - Coolio

Joshua Tree

For the outlaws

Set off at a reasonable hour and headed to a ghost town called Rhyolite - it had been a fairly big place in 1908 (10,000) when there was a mining boom (2 points if you guess what was mined), but soon enough the mines failed and in 1910 the population was down to about 400. A few years later there were only about 20 left. The we got to the desired destination: Death Valley - a place with an evaporation rate so high you don't even know that you're sweating because any moisture it evaporates as soon as it leaves your pores. This place was just incredible - the valley had had more rain this season than it has in years and there were some areas covered with colour. It was wonderful. Unfortunately the visibility wasn't great for the afternoon we arrived as there was a massive dust storm but it kept the temperature down to about 34 degrees. It was so odd wandering around in the hottest place in the world looking to my left and right being surrounded by flowers on the ground and snow capped mountains about 5 miles away (the Panamints range reaches an elevation of around 11,000 feet, I on the other hand in bad water was around 290 feet below sea level). My photos will tell you more than my words will ( have a look at my facebook). On a fun note, orchids occur in the springs of death valley! Who said they were pathetic???

We were planning on camping that night but the wind was just insane (guys in the car had set up their tent next to us as the angle of their tent was around 45 degrees for most of the night). Thus the car was our tent!

The next morning saw us walking in the mosaic canyon which was incredible and we were lucky enough to spy big horned sheep (they are rather shy). Oh crap I haven't even commented on the animals I've seen so far. Bah.
I saw deer, elk, squirrels and blue jays in grand canyon NP and heard a whole bunch that I didn't see.
Saw a kangaroo rat yesterday which was lovely.
I think this is enough for now. Stay tuned for tales of a Japanese internment camp, a nice village turned into a ghost town because LA took all of their water, swimming in a hot pool whilst being in a landscape surrounded by snow capped mountains. Icicles larger that my head in June Lake.

Miss you all

B

p.s. The song California Dreaming by the Mama's and the Papa's is silly. Sure LA is warm but I'm currently freezing my butt off in a little place called Bishop which is in CA. They should have been more specific and called it Southern California Dreaming

Sierra Nevada Range

Road trip: "We've been on the run, driving in the sun Looking out for number 1" Phantom Planet

Spent the morning in downtown LA. Tis a funny place, they go from 3 piece suits to sketchy in under a block. The architecture around there is quite fantastic though, especially the Walt Disney concert hall (which apparently had to be dulled down after neighbouring apartment blocks complained that their air conditioning bills were going through the roof!).

Disney Concert Hall

In the afternoon I caught up with host number 2 and, after catching a bus in the wrong direction (I ended up in East LA which is dodgy, and spent the time waiting for the bus I needed listening to two hispanic guys discussing their rap sheet. One has been in prison in and out from age 12. Cute), headed down to San Diego for a looksee. It's a nice little place with a great vegetarian mexican restaurant and a lovely beach. Spent the day wandering around and waved to mexico when we got close to the border. Felt no desire whatsoever to venture into Tijuana. 
San Diego to Flagstaff
Early the next day, by early I mean 4am, we left for the GRAND CANYON. The reason we left so early was because it was a massive drive and because we wanted to see the sun rise over the desert. The round about route we took the 78 route to Blythe and saw some fantastic sand dunes (some folks there had confederate flags, yay racism), were stopped by border control who gave me the a-ok and passed on up through Phoenix. Granted we only drove through Phoenix but, from what I can see, there's really nothing to recommend it. It just seems to be masses of suburban sprawl which emerges out of seeming nowhere in a fairly nothing-y landscape. All the houses seemed to be identical as well. I mentioned that I thought this was a little socialist looking for a place like the USA. I got the desired reaction :D
I feel the need to point out that many of the cacti we passed outside of Phoenix are very phallic in appearance. Just putting it out there.

Headed north to a place called Meteor Crater which is apparently is the most accessible crater in the world. It was incredibly impressive - it's around 550 feet deep and has a massive circumference. The thing I really liked about it was its isolation. You couldn't hear cars, planes, nothing like that. Just the gentle sound of the breeze.

Meteor Crater

 Then it was on to Flagstaff for dinner and a wander around. Flagstaff is a really cute little town and I would have liked to have spent more time there but it was getting pretty dark and we needed to find a place to camp, so off we went.
In the states there's a rule that you have to camp at least 400m off from any main road, so the plan was to find a little bush trail and set things up there. This was a fine plan, but when every access road for about 30mins driving was closed off due to snow we started to lose hope. The drive itself there was fantastic - it was still quite light because of a full moon and the scenery was just small, isolated farm houses and snow capped mountains. It was the kind of eerie situation that you could imagine the crime from "In cold blood" occurring. Eventually, when we'd almost started to worry, we finally found an opening and set up camp. It was bloody cold and setting up a camp when you can't feel your fingers is a little character building. Turns out it was around -7 (we were at an altitude of about 7000 feet). Ice formed on the inside of the tent.
Grand Canyon
Words can not explain how incredible the grand canyon was. I got a little choked up when I first saw it (luckily we got there at about 9:30 or otherwise I swear any eye moisture would have frozen on my face!). The only way to get an idea of how completely grandiose the whole thing is without seeing it would be to grab a copy of Mussorgsky's "Great Gate of Kiev" go to around the last 90 or so seconds of the piece and crank it up to 11. Stunning. Anyway we did a 6 mile round trip on a walk called the Bright Angel trail and that was just lovely and walking down into the canyon just felt like you were being completely enveloped by it. Incredibly place. Slightly worrying was the fact that part of the trail was quiet icey and slippery and there are no guard rails (approx 10 people a year die here from either falling off or dehydration), but I didn't die so all was peachy. After getting back up we took a shuttle bus that went around the rim so see some other areas and all were equally as breath taking. Especially wonderful was watching the sunset. I was pretty impressed by a ranger presentation given afterwards explaining what Teddy Roosevelt and FDR did for the establishment of national parks in the USA. Fantastic day. It was forecast to get just as cold as it had been the night before. We slept in the car.

Grand Canyon

Las Vegas: "And the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made" Simon and Garfunkel

This morning didn't start so well. We had parked the same area as the previous day and that was fine but we got caught in some soft dry mud. When I looked at the front of the car I noticed that one of the wheels was in the air. For a front wheel drive car, this is problematic. After about an hour of trying to dig ourselves out, I decided that it would be more efficient to try and find some help so I ran the half mile or so back to the main road. Apparently I am an awesome damsel in distress because the first car I tried to flag down stopped and although they didn't have a chain, it was a 4 wheel drive and were able to push us out. 
Fun conversation with our good Samaritans. After me getting in the car with them
Them (husband wife and child): You know, you should be careful on who you flag down
Me: Oh I know, but I was getting pretty desperate there 
Them: You're not going to lure us down here to our doom are you?
Me: Nah, I'm an Australian, we don't hurt anyone
Them: Oh that's good to hear, we're parole evaders.

Everyone's a comedian.

Everything went smoothly after that, except when I was running out to get help I twisted my ankle pretty badly which sucked somewhat.

Anyway we caught up with our host Chad in vegas who some of you may know- if you watched "Fry in America" he was in the Vegas episode and was the fellow who was excommunicated from the Mormon church for making these sexy Mormon calenders (much like the fireman ones we get at home), and since the uni he went to was also owned by the Mormons, they revoked his degree as well. Nice. Chad was a lovely guy and played doctor and bandaged up my ankle and gave me some anti inflammatory which was great. He also had a lovely dog called ranger (about the same size as me!) and his housemate had a rather old and crusty (but adorable) pug, so we were in good company. His house was also incredibly - Vegas is currently going through a massive housing bust at present so you can get fancy things for a reasonable amount.

Anyway we went out with Chad and some of his friends (all of whom are flamboyantly gay) to this amazing sushi restaurant, wandered around a funny little car park carnival that opened outside and then hit the strip. The strip is ridiculous, pure and simple insanity. We went to two key areas, the first was the Bellagio casino which had this ridiculous indoor garden and an amazing water fountain display outside (I would have preferred it if it hadn't been choreographed to the most patriotic song I've ever heard. I can't remember the title but went "I'm proud to be an American, 'cause at least I know I'm free". Vomit). I don't even want to think about the money that was spent constructing this, or any other casino (one casino called New York, New York is a building in the shape of the city). Or about the money that is dropped there on a daily basis. Casinos, even though these were quite incredible always make me feel a little dirty. The insides are full of twinkly lights, clocks are absent and if you're sitting on high roller tables, drinks are free. The lengths they go to encourage you to part with you cash (and to do it happily) is just horrifying. Apparently there are heaps of councilors who provide support for gambling addiction but, unlike the bankruptcy lawyers, the "1800-get-thin" lap band surgery advertisement and more, information about these guys is not constantly in your face.
The second area we headed to was in "old vegas" - the vegas of the Rat Pack era, and I got the feeling that that was where people ended up when they couldn't stop themselves. Unlike the well dressed people of the main strip, people here were obviously poorer, with minimal self control. We would have done more but it was after midnight by the stage and I was pretty much dead on my feet.

The hoover dam was also great, but this entry is already far too long