The Big Country

Every once in a while we go somewhere in America and I find myself thinking it ain’t such a bad place after all.  I almost feel like I’m being disloyal to my blog when I say that, but take away the people, the politics, the fast food, crap TV and LA traffic because I can knock those to my heart’s content, but even I can’t fault the landscape.  Sometimes there is no other word to describe it other than stunning.

Yosemite National Park is a six hour drive from LA and it really is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever visited.  The scenery is breathtaking.  The view from the top of the 9000 ft Glacier Point is spectacular – the magnificent El Capitan Rock basked in sunlight, the impressive Half Dome, a huge mound of solid rock that looks like someone has literally sliced it in half; massive waterfalls thundering over granite cliffs and way down in the green valley below the Merced River, meandering through meadows; it was like looking down onto one of those picture perfect model villages complete with matchbox cars and airfix boats.

Of course there is a downside to all this wondrous beauty – Yosemite gets very busy; the hike up and down to Vernal Falls – one of Yosemite’s must-do’s according to our guidebook and obviously everyone else’s – was like trying to make your way along Oxford Street on a busy Saturday afternoon – on the vertical of course.  Unfortunately just a week or so beforehand three hikers had stepped out into the raging water at the top of Vernal Falls (why?) and had been swept over the 300 ft high waterfall never to be seen again. The hike to the top is pretty spectacular and definitely precarious.  We quit about three quarters of the way up – the spray from the waterfall covers the roughly hewn stone steps making them decidedly slippery when wet; there’s no handrail to cling onto and whilst I felt confident enough about making it up, what really worried me was coming down – especially as the path was getting so crowded.

I’m not a seasoned hiker and as I’ve spent most of my life living at sea level and I mean sea level – until moving to California I’d always lived within a 10 minute walk to the coast – the high altitude in Yosemite was definitely putting us all slightly off kilter.  Despite all that extra time I’d spent in the gym there was an awful lot of heavy breathing going on.  And whilst I have spent most of my life living by the sea, I’m not a sailor either as the rest of my family will happily confirm.  Hiring a raft to paddle down the river might well have seemed like a good idea at the time but put me in an inflatable rubber dinghy with a paddle and a bulky life jacket in the middle of a fast flowing stream and I’m really not the best company. Nor am I a camper – my camping days are long gone – but accommodation in Yosemite is at a premium and the majority of visitors do camp, despite the bears.  Fortunately travelling in style is something I can do well, and I’d been lucky enough to secure a couple of nights at vast expense in a private log cabin complete with hot tub.  It was a great relief to head back at the end of an exhausting day to relax in the tub with a glass of champagne and set up for the evening’s bear watch.

Unfortunately the bears were not forthcoming; although plenty of mosquitoes were.  We did spot a mangy coyote sniffing its way along the road and the next morning as we headed out of the park through the gorgeous Toulumne Meadows, herds of deer sprang across our path. Snow capped mountains framed the backdrop as the babbling Toulumne River wound its merry way across fields filled with tiny alpine-like flowers and it seemed the ideal spot for a picnic.  But then I remembered those bears, maybe I wasn’t so keen on spotting one after all…. 

If you ever plan a trip to California I’d give Los Angeles a miss. Drive out of LAX and head up north. LA might well have all the gorgeous people but Yosemite National Park is natural beauty at its very best.

The Unanswered Question

Major book retailers Borders recently announced that it’s closing all its stores.  Well I’m not surprised.  We visited our local Borders a couple of weeks back just before the company made its public announcement and to be honest the place was a shambles. The shop floor was like a jumble sale and there was a very long line at the check out with just one sales assistant.

There was a second assistant at the desk but he couldn’t help because, as he explained to another customer, he was busy “de-magnitising some stock”.  Well I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only person who would have quite liked to de-magnitise him.  Anyway, he did grudgingly give up on his magnets to eventually help his colleague out and when it was our turn to pay he politely enquired on auto-pilot as they always do, had we found everything we wanted okay today? Of course the standard answer to this is always yes thank-you, but as it had actually taken us taken quite a while to find what we wanted, my husband politely pointed out that we had had some difficulty finding the right book. “But you’ve got what you wanted now”, was the assistant's answer to that, “so we’re all okay.”

Well what was the point in asking then?

That was when I really wish I had said:  Now listen here Magnet Boy, your store’s a complete mess, service is diabolical and no wonder everyone would rather download an e-book. But of course that would have been rude and I’m not a rude person but there are certainly times when all these American gratuitous pleasantries are quite frankly, pointless. Why bother asking the question if you’re not interested in the answer?

I feel the same when I’m always asked “how’s your day going?”. I’m never sure how I’m expected to respond – after all surely nobody really wants a blow by blow account of what I’ve been up to but on the other hand why should I always feel I have to mutter a polite “good, thank you” when in fact my day might well have been bloody awful? Why is there the need over here for all this superfluous conversation? Can’t I just pay my money in peace and get out of the shop? Is that really too much to ask for? 

Maybe this is a suitable question for the book of “62 Unanswered Questions.”  We spotted this little gem whilst standing in that long line at Borders.  Americans have endless patience and as I’ve said before, you have to learn to use that time wisely.  Waiting in line presents the perfect chance to reflect, meditate and flick through items on the Sale Table – the usual array of totally useless publications which you can understand perfectly why nobody has ever wanted to buy.

"62 Unanswered Questions" included such eternal dilemma's as "Should you urinate in front of another person?" (which surely begs the 63rd question of why on earth would you ever want to?) but the book that really caught my eye was "Knit Your Own Dog". Well I can knit and as anyone who reads this blog regularly knows, I do get a tad bored left to my own devices all day, so this sounds like the perfect solution.  25 knitting patterns for re-creating the entire Kennel Club, everything from a Welsh Corgi to a Red Setter – in perfect miniature. It was fabulous!!

Unfortunately hubby was not so impressed and adamantly refused to fork out the requested $15 plus sales tax, but I did check it out on Amazon when I got home, where it sells for considerably less (another nail in Borders coffin). I'll definitely be bearing this one in mind next time I need to bulk up my order to qualify for super saver delivery.

And of course, not only would this book give me the opportunity to surround myself with a woolly menagerie of pedigree pooches, it would provide me with a whole range of superfluous conversation stoppers of my very own.  The next time a totally disinterested sales assistants asks “how’s your day going?”, personally I think: “Great thank-you – I’ve cast on a Pit Bull, stitched two legs on a Springer Spaniel and have just stuffed my first West Highland terrier" could be the perfect answer.

On Safari

We recently decided to pay a visit to the San Diego Safari Park.
 

Some time ago we had been to San Diego Zoo primarily because I wanted to see the giant pandas.  I’m not a great supporter of zoo’s – like most people I think I’d rather see these animals in the wild than behind bars but being realistic, the chance of spotting a panda in its natural environment is extremely unlikely.  San Diego Zoo is world famous; most of the animals (although not all) are in large enclosures and the zoo runs an extremely successful conservation and breeding programme.

The Safari Park was originally conceived as the zoo’s “over spill” but is now an established wildlife park specializing in endangered African animals.

It promotes itself as being the closest thing to a real African safari as you can get outside Africa.  To be fair that is probably the case because there are not many places outside of Africa that have such vast empty hot dry uninhabited spaces where these safari type animals can be homed. On the other hand I’m not sure any Safari you go on in Africa would have you standing in the back of a truck hand feeding a giraffe.  Nor would the lions be sat on a very fresh looking piece of recently watered bright green grass, or wild cheetahs be participating in a 70 mile an hour “cheetah race” just for your personal entertainment, but I’m pretty sure the park’s founders had their heart in the right place.

Unfortunately you can’t conserve without money and you can’t make money unless you can generate an income and the easiest way to generate an income is to attract an audience.  The Safari Park is up against Disney and Sea World so presumably they have to do something to make people want to go. Sadly it would appear that just “viewing” these endangered animals in as near to their natural environment as possible is not enough. The public wants to be entertained and to interact - that whole 4-D experience.

We did enjoy the Safari Park and the hot African-like temperatures only added to the ambiance of the place.  Like most modern day tourist attractions there was an abundance of fast food outlets and retail opportunities to keep most of the visitors happy - just in case anyone lost interest in the animals. Overcome with exhaustion we decided not to stay until 5.00 pm for that cheetah race, or spend the night in one of the Safari Park’s purpose built tents for the total authentic “African” experience, but headed off instead to a nearby hotel.

We ended up in La Jolla (pronounced La Hoya - just in case you ever need to ask directions) the positively upmarket end of San Diego, and very lovely it was too.   La Jolla is a Mediterrean style resort – it’s compact and walkable and unlike most of beachside America it doesn’t have a main highway running through the middle of it (it also has the best Crab wontons I've ever tasted - I'll warn you now that week in New England has turned me into a total foodie!)

Dolphins and seals swam and frolicked just a few feet off shore in their totally natural environment - so close you could almost touch them, but thankfully that's not encouraged here.  In fact it's totally forbidden - there are signs posted all along the beach front warning against any interaction or interference with the marine mammals.  Just a few miles down the road you can take your kids to Sea World for the day where they can hang over the edge of a man-made pond and pat a captive dolphin on the head. Or, you could bring them to La Jolla, sit them on the beach and watch a wonderfully natural and spontaneous display of wildlife.

Personally, I know which show I'd rather see.

An All American Family

Now that the school term has officially ended and the Californian summer is well and truly here, we appear to have metamorphed into a typical all American family. 

The Teenager is currently attending summer school – there’s none of those long lazy lie-in’s for us. Summer School is a Californian educational must-have; the chance to improve on those grades for some, or fortunately for our teenager, the opportunity to get a couple of compulsory subjects out of the way to free up space in next term's highly academic schedule for some lightweight art “electives”. Of course we have to pay for this privilege – as do her friends attending public (state) run summer schools, and if she wasn’t at the Summer Academy (and some of her friends appear to be there from 7.00 in the morning until 7 at night) she would have a total of 11 weeks off school.  So why they just don’t extend the school term for another 5 weeks in order to fit everything in?

Daughter No 1 is currently here too, volunteering as a counselor at a local children’s summer camp. That’s another All-American must-have; with 11 long weeks to fill summer camps provide the ideal solution not just for working parents who need to find childcare, but for High School kids looking to earn credits towards college entry through voluntary work.  University places in California are like gold-dust – you don’t just need the straight A’s to get accepted; you need to have been in at least six school sports teams, chaired a dozen after school clubs and have completed several hours worth of “community service”. Don’t even think about applying to the big two, USC or UCLA, without it.

So the kids are well and truly embracing their new American lifestyle.  After camp and after school they trot off together to Starbucks to indulge in some frothy toffee café latte type thing. The Teenager is now in possession of a Starbucks Gold Card and enjoys all those little extra upgrades this brings - extra caramel, extra ice, extra calories.  She has also realized that at 15 and a half she can now apply for a driving permit so is about to embark on a course of “Driver Ed”.  Scarily enough as soon as she’s passed her written test she can start to drive on the road as long as she accompanied by a “competent adult” (that wont be me then.)

I keep thinking am I going to be the last bastion of Britishness in this family or have even I  succumbed to the Californian way of life?  I do still take my own bags to the supermarket but I have just signed up for golf lessons - although I am not sure if that is embracing a new lifestyle or just part of the natural aging process.

Perhaps the most telling sign of this acclimitisation is literally just that – we’ve started putting the air conditioning on. A few days of temperatures well up in the 90’s and I realize I am housebound again – it’s straight from the air conditioned apartment to the air conditioned car.  And then when the “marine layer” moves in for a day or two we welcome it as light relief – Cloudy today? Oh thank goodness for that…spoken like a true Californian.

And because it’s too hot I’ve had to curtail my morning walks and have resorted to visiting the  residents’ gym. Like everything else in America, exercising is highly competitive. I’ve usually got the gym to myself but occasionally I’ll be joined by a total fitness fiend – someone who puts me to shame burning off 600 calories in one 15 minute session.  I much prefer the alternative – the exercise-phobe who strolls in with a cup of coffee and positively dawdles along on the running machine.  Then it’s my turn to feel ultimately superior and I fear all that competitiveness has rubbed off on me…….you really think five minutes walking at that speed will keep you fit?

As always there is a big flat screen TV up on the wall in the gym but this constant obsession with the TV is definitely part of American culture that I haven't embraced. If I’m exercising on my own I don’t have the TV on – after all it’s normally first thing in the morning, I’m contact lens-less and quite frankly have enough trouble seeing the digital readout in front of my nose let alone a TV screen a few feet away – that’s just a blurry distraction.  However, part of a regular American warm-up routine will be the search for the TV remote and several subsequent channel hops.  I have actually been asked if the TV was broken simply because it was off – there was a complete look of amazement when I replied no I just hadn’t switched it on.  You’re kidding me!

No I’m quite happy just jogging along to my I-pod.  The livelier the music the quicker I tend to run.  Green Day’s “American Idiot” seems to work quite well for me. ;-)

Independence Day

Being British I do feel slightly awkward about Independence Day celebrations.

Last year we made the mistake of  going to Huntington Beach where unbeknown to us there was quite a significant Independence Day Parade taking place, lots of flag waving and pledging of the allegiance. It was a display of American patriotism at its very best, but we kept our heads firmly down and tried not to draw attention to ourselves, feeling distinctly like we'd gatecrashed a private party.

Various sections of American military personnel marched proudly past to rapturous applause followed by an assortment of local school bands, decorated floats and some elderly townsfolk who had presumably done something significant with their lives apart from just being old.

Huntington Beach was packed – people were crammed into the sidewalks; homeowners were perching on their roof tops; there were families having BBQ’s in the front yard where the sofa had been dragged outside so grandma could get a better view.

This year we knew better so we decided to keep a distinctly low profile.   No parades for us.

It was very hot and seeking refuge from the heat we decided we’d go to the movies where it would be nice and cool inside.  As I’ve mentioned before we are very lucky in Pasadena because we have a positive plethora of movie theatres all within walking distance and I wanted to go and see the latest installment of Pirates of the Caribbean. 

  

It’s very indicative of just how many more movies come out here than back in the UK because films tend to come and go from the big multiplexes very quickly.  Even blockbusters like Harry Potter don’t hang around here for more than a couple of weeks before the next big thing arrives, but with an abundance of movie screens I knew we’d be able to catch those Pirates somewhere.  Sure enough – they were showing at the “Academy 6” a very small movie theatre at the less salubrious end of main street Pasadena, a building reminiscent of something which  we would have lovingly  referred to back home as a flea pit.

At $2 a ticket it was almost cheaper than staying at home with the air conditioning on – and I got to sit and watch Johnny Depp for two hours.  That’s not bad.  The place was certainly better on the inside than the out, and exceeded my expectations with regard to comfort of seating and internal décor. It did take us a while to choose a seat however - every time we sat down we appeared to be viewing the screen at a slightly odd angle.  There were the usual disturbances of other people filtering in and out throughout the course of the film, including a couple with a dog (that’s a first) and there was also a rather annoying fuzzy green line which appeared down the middle of the screen half way during the film and stayed right to the very end, but hey, at $2 a ticket what can you expect?

At the end of the show we were thrust back out into the brilliant sunlight and the ghostly quiet of mid-afternoon Pasadena.  The streets were deserted – where was everyone? Were they really all sat at home watching Independence Day TV marathons? (Yes I saw these being advertised in the run up to 4 July – a whole day of watching and re-watching repeats of your favourite show - what a great way for US citizens to celebrate their independence from us Brits – slob out watching crap TV all day with a fast-food takeway.)

Later on we walked downtown and ate a meal in half empty restaurant, where rather ironically we noticed that the background music had a distinctly British feel about it - Mumford & Sons, Florence & the Machine. There we were a few weeks ago in Boston, walking the Freedom Trail and standing before a large bronze statue of American hero Paul Revere, famous for his midnight ride to warn the American revolutionists of imminent attack with his cry of "the British are coming, the British are coming".

Who'd have thought, 235 years later and, funnily enough, we're still here.

The Honeymoon's Over

Ten days previously we had set out for New York and New England from sunny California, but now our East Coast adventure had come to an end and it was time to pack our bags and had back west.

I loved New England; a whole new world had been revealed to me and I wanted to know more.

On the long drive back to Newark I had lots to ponder on; I vowed to go on a quest to discover all I could about those brave Pilgrim Fathers, Martha’s Vineyard, the Kennedy’s, and the Native Americans whose story has almost been erased from America’s history books.

As we drove back through the lush green countryside I could almost imagine that famous, (albeit very Disneyfied) Native American Pocahontas running bare foot through the trees with the colours of the wind flying through her hair.

I was seriously starting to think I do rather like this county, but then the vagaries and absurdities of living in America struck yet again.

It wasn’t just my imaginary Pocahontas I could see with the wind in her hair as we drove back down those Connecticut freeways.  Hairy biker after hairy biker sped past our car and it soon became very apparent that this is a state where the crash helmet is not a legal neccessity. Yet when we pulled up in nearby New Jersey we discovered that we couldn’t even put gas in our own car.  Yes here the self service gas station is illegal - quite simply its considered too dangerous, only a highly trained gas station employee has the safety awareness and required knowledge to press that button and manhandle the pump.

Hop on your Harley Davidson in NJ and it’s considered too much of a health risk for you to unscrew your own fuel cap; travel a few miles east to the CT border and you can rip off your helmet and ride bareheaded to kingdom come.  Am I the only person in the world who thinks that’s just slightly mad?

The skytrain mono-rail at Newark Airport was on a go-slow, already delayed at the gas station waiting for a NASA trained fuel pump attendant, we were then literally trapped for 20 minutes on a ride that should have taken five.  

We made it to our departure gate with minutes to spare.

Pilgrim Fathers? Who gives a fig.  It was definitely time to splash out on a Continental Airlines alcoholic beverage.  Ice cold red wine?  Ooh my favourite!

West Meets East Part III - Cape Cod Capers

 Now that we were warm and waterproof we could head off anywhere - Massachusettes was our oyster or rather our lobster because that’s the local delicacy. 

 

On our first day we headed to Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod.  This is an artists’ retreat and very arty it was too.  We declined the opportunity to have a tattoo from a man body sprayed entirely in pink paint and instead browsed the tiny little main street bordered by traditional New England cottages with delightfully rustic front gardens crammed with unruly bright flowers and objects d’art.  

We made a detour to view America’s “most photographed” lighthouse.  Whilst it was in a very picturesque setting, the lighthouse itself it was a bit of a disappointment, mainly because I’d misread the Guide Book - it was actually only 40ft tall not the 400 we were expecting. Still I was able to quickly redeem myself by spotting a couple of seals frolicking in the waves below.  The distraction technique – works every time.

The next day we took the train into Boston and started our tour of the town at Harvard.  I like to give the teenager something to aim for.  She was suitably impressed so we forked out for a genuine Harvard sweatshirt just in case. We then followed the Freedom Trail around the city streets along with a million local school children obviously on an end of term treat.  We managed to lose the school kids and divert off the trail to take lunch in the Italian quarter before heading for some retail therapy (Jack Wills – traditional English “outfitters” and the teenager’s favourite – we really are trying hard for that Parents of the Year award), then a quick glimpse of the original Cheers bar – memories of youthful Friday evenings spent in front of the TV.

The following day the wind had dropped and the skies cleared so we decided to risk the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, the summer vacation destination of the rich and famous and the setting for Steven Spielberg’s movie Jaws.  Fortunately it was early in the season on the Vineyard and it was relatively quiet.  In the height of summer you can’t move for the multitudes of wealthy tourists, great white sharks and US presidents.  We hired bikes and cycled down the coast to Edgartown where, coincidentally there is yet another Jack Wills store.  After purchasing the fancy frock spotted the day before in Boston and lunching on a lobster roll, we cycled back to blustery Oak Bluffs for the 40 minute ferry ride back to the mainland. As the sun was still out we headed quickly home to Plymouth so hubby could light the BBQ.

The sun continued to shine for the next couple of days.  The Plymouth mac was rolled away; we sweltered on the local beach; we took long walks along the harbor, we visited Cup Cake Charlies – runner up in TV’s Food Network Cup Cake Wars; we ate an awful lot of seafood and  devoured far too much Boston Cream Pie. 

On our last day we head to Hyannis for a quick tour of the JFK museum and a visit to the local “Zooquarium” – yes that’s a cross between an aquarium and a zoo.  We said hi to a very rare blue lobster in one of the aquarium fish tanks but I could tell I’d been in Cape Cod too long – I was no longer admiring the sea life from a conservation point of view – it was more a question of I wonder what that tastes like …….