Southland Redux

After bidding a fond farewell to Northern California we drove back the way we had come, dropping in again to San Jose (like moths to the flame) for some serious outlet mall shopping.

Decked out in new threads we thus continued to Santa Barbara where we got ridiculously drunk from one single winery tasting (they push you to buy wine at the end - go figure) followed by an Irish pub experience that exceeded all the pubs in Ireland we had been to with the quality of food and music - again go figure.

We love Santa Barbara! The air is one of inverted cinema verite - one of leaving aside the real for the imagined and styled, which is then decidedly realised. I don't see the problem with rendering an image of perfection, of declaring that the imperfect is made obsolete with one perfectly realised airbrushed smile. Baudrillard declares that Santa Barbara is paradise, albeit one in which meaning has been discarded. But Australian culture has never made much pretense to grandeur in the European tradition, and so Santa Barbara appears as just a wealthier and classier version of our own native hedonism.

After checking out the local university (the one with it's own freeway and palm lined beach) we hit the road again bound for San Diego. Total distance from Santa Rosa to San Diego was 1000 km, and the difference is really significant. Jumper and coat weather to t-shirts again, and beachy sea-breezes rather than frosty mountain air. The sun seems to de-saturate the colours in Southern California compared to the north and everyone drives faster the closer you get to Los Angeles, as if it was the source of boundless light and energy.

Freak snowfalls had closed three of the north-south freeways that lead to LA and we could see the snow on the far off mountains as we stood on the beach in San Diego in blazing sun. The night before in San Diego we had had the most amazing American meal since leaving Manhattan - Phil's BBQ which takes the American delight in slow cooked barbecue to the next level with it's amazingly decadent and delicious goodness. Our hotel was across the road from this place and there was no escaping the scent of roasting meat anywhere in the vicinity during the day. Come night and the place is a feeding frenzy, with the line stretching well out the door into the chilly evening air by 5:30PM. We ordered mesquite chicken, giant beef and baby back ribs - the portions were massive and the only way to eat is with your hands, and the meat is delicious and the sauce goes beyond good. Just as amazing are the sides - "best ever" declared Jannie of the coleslaw and potato salad.

It seems to me that barbecue is THE American cuisine. Intoxicatingly deadly but unmissable and best served along with unlimited quantities of soda.

More beaches followed, La Jolla, Laguna and Newport as we made our way back north to "the" OC. A full day of rain allowed us to catch our breath and actually enjoy not leaving the hotel all day, meanwhile planning our next adventure...

Lake Tahoe - Sacramento - Santa Rosa

Our trip to Lake Tahoe was a little shorter than we had hoped but still just as magnificent. We left San Jose on Wednesday with the intention of staying in Truckee (named after the river not the Truckers that drive through) over night and making the 1/2hr journey to the lake the next morning. We got to Truckee after driving for about 3 hours only to find that there really were no good places to stay. It was about 5pm and getting dark so we found some wifi and a really cute cafe and paid a visit to our favourite website for this trip (hotwire.com). The best place we could find was a casino hotel in Reno, it was only 1/2hrs drive away and cheap as chips naturally being in a casino. Although Reno is a bit of a grotesque kind of place (a down market version of Vegas) the hotel was big and comfy and our view was amazing. We could see out the the sierra Nevada complete with snow capped mountains. So while I hate gambling I can't help but be grateful for the cheap accommodation and food it provided for us.

We were up bright and early for our drive around lake Tahoe. Now I should explain that we had planned on spending 10days in Tahoe skiing over Christmas but cancelled it for a couple of reasons. 1. Hertz does not allow you to put chains on rental cars, and if it snows you can't drive to Tahoe without them. 2. We are not too sure we want to be driving in the snow and 3. Our dollar dying in the last few months had made the trip way more expensive than we had hoped. So anyway we had decided that we should at least get there for the day before the snow starts so we can at least see what we were missing. Lake Tahoe is one of the most beautiful places I have ever had the pleasure of visiting. It is one of the cleanest, deepest most scenic lakes in the world. The photos we took really just don't do it justice. Should anyone ever be in this area this is a must see destination.

We left Tahoe after completing the drive around the lake and drove on to Sacramento. Apart from being the state capital and kind of pretty it really isn't very interesting. It was an old gold mining town and has kept some of the original buildings, but I was glad we only spent one night there.

Now at this point I am beginning to feel like a bit of a gypsy moving from place to place but we are on the home stretch and really want to squeeze as much as we can into this adventure. From Sacramento we drove back to San Jose as we didn't quite get to do everything we had planned the last time we were there. One of the things on our list was to let out our inner geek and visit the Computer History Museum. It was quite amusing to see just how many geeks there were visiting that day, you know the tall lanky long hair and glasses kind, I just couldn't help but chuckle to myself. We had a tour guide to show us around and explain to us the workings of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine (made from brass and able to add numbers up to 30 digits long) and walk us through all the old machines from the abacus to the modern day computers. It was quite fascinating to see just how far technology has come in such a short amount of time. I thoroughly enjoyed our visit....well except for being called a house wife in an example of a census question!

So Now we have arrived in Santa Rosa and the temperature has dropped to about 4 degrees. We arrived last night at John Tarrant's house (a good friend of Jack's Mother) who was gracious enough to let us stay for a few days. We have felt so welcomed by everyone we have stayed with thus far and this was no exception. John cooked us a fantastic meal of whole fresh crab and fresh baked Tuna (delicious), then we woke to fresh tamales care of Brian (a friend of Johns) whom we met last night. Apparently the tamales are sold on the side of the road by a family of Mexicans who make them fresh each night. I have never had them before coming to California and I have to say they are my favourite Mexican cuisine.

We spent today driving around the Sonoma wine country all the way to Armstrong woods to take a walk in the rain forest and see some of the tallest trees I have ever seen. We also had lunch at the gorgeous town of Healdsburg before we got too cold and called it a night. We are now just relaxing at Johns house and trying to decide where our next stop will be!

PCH - Monterey - San Jose

Driving up Pacific Coast Highway from Santa Barbara we found elephant seals, roads covered in rockfalls from the sheer cliffs, and expansive views of the coast. It was a great drive.

Even though it's a "highway" you can't do more than 40MPH due to the continual curves and sheer drops on the other side. The road is basically cut into the cliff and follows the contours of the mountains around the coast. Every turn revealed something new and amazing - "ohhh, wow" we kept saying.

Eventually the road turns into the forests of "Big Sur" but it still feels remote and curvaceous until you pop out at Carmel ("a dream place" according to Jannie, due to it's pretty tree lined main street that slopes down to a lovely beach).

It's then a short drive to Monterey where we spent the night. Monterey is always lovely, with pretty houses and seaside. The next morning we saw butterflies and deer at the butterly sanctuary and continued the drive to Santa Cruz, which although pretty is definitely a part of Northern California as the wind was icy cold. Definitely not shorts weather up here.

Deciding to give it a miss, we headed over the mountain to San Jose where we both enjoyed being back in the city, in the heart of "Silicone Valley". I never knew that San Jose is the 10th largest city in the US. It feels so much like a small town. Everything seems to be a ten minute drive from wherever you are.

The way we found the hotel was totally appropriate. We dropped into the Holiday Inn Express to go to the bathroom and to find out their rates only to be told it was $160. That's $240 AUD! Totally outrageous. (Walk in rates always suck - we paid $60 at another hi express and the person ahead was paying $16 on some corporate rate). Anyway, we asked if there was free wifi around. They looked at us and said they had no idea.

So we went out to the car and checked - it turned out there was free wifi from the hotel across the street, so we drove around with the laptop to find the strongest signal, then booked a room with hotwire.com for another holiday inn for the much more acceptable rate of $60.

San Jose is business town - everyone here is geeky or business like, tapping away on laptops or PDAs but it's still kind of fun. It has nice mountains on each side and is 45 minutes to San Francisco and 45 minutes to Santa Cruz.

Jannie finished buying her ski clothes here - total cost for funky warm waterproof jacket, pants and gloves is $100 (the jacket is last season's style - oh the shame).

We also went to the IMAX dome for Adrenaline Rush and saw the Tech Museum of Innovation.

So now we are all set for an adventure to Lake Tahoe - and skiing if there is any snow to be found.

Santa Barbara - Pismo Beach

With the fog clearing, So-Cal reveals a warmth that had me walking around in shorts all day, nearly a week into "winter". We left LA and headed to Camarillo where there is an enormous outlet mall. You guessed it, this was where Jannie bought more shoes. And jeans. We'll need a new suitcase to carry everything back at this rate.

Next we arrived in Santa Barbara, a really outstanding beach community that features lovely beaches (almost as nice as Australian ones), fantastic food and a rampaging nightlife. We were just in time for the Holiday Parade, a real small-town-Americana experience. They trundled out numerous marching bands from the local high schools, gymnastic clubs that did cartwheels down the street, the town's "No 1" fire engine and Santa made an appearance at the end, all to the crowds applause and a sea of smiles and "Happy Holidays!". The contingent from the town's special olympics group gave especially heartwarming exhortations and brought tears to Jannie's eye.

I was reminded several times of the film Cutter's Way while in Santa Barbara. There are a number of parade scenes in that too (and it was shot in Santa Barbara) - one in particular where the protagonist is asked by somebody on a horse how they look - "you look like a fat man on a horse, Georgie" is the reply. There were a lot of fat men driving over-sized trucks in the holiday parade Friday night.

It's a wealthy community with a large Latino working class belt on its fringes, and as Tom Wiener notes "Cutter's Way is acutely sensitive to the bitterness that gnaws at people drawn to the physical charms of California, only to be disappointed by their inability to share in the false promise of happiness those charms hold out". We'll try to get back to Santa Barbara, it is in my mind the quintessential so-cal experience.

The next stop was Pismo Beach where we saw an outstanding sunset and were bathed in the smoke of numerous barbecues on the beach. (The American BBQ method is more like smoking meat rather than the fast cooking as we impatient Aussies demand).

The scenery while driving has been amazing, and we are having a great time. This is the first time in a long while that we have been out in the country and it feels fine.

CA Road Trip - LA

We decided the other day that 13 flights would not be enough on this trip so we have added one more and are now in LA. Our first night was spent at lovely Redondo Beach but unfortunately the city is covered in fog right now so it was not as picturesque as we were expecting. After a long walk along the beach and an even longer walk to the hire car place (yes i complained the whole way) we have picked up a car and are ready to start driving.

We have spent the last two days in Culver City which as it turns out was an excellent choice, due to its proximity to all the local LA attractions. Jack has settled right back into driving on the right hand side of the road with only a few 'keep to the right' reminders from me! I'm still afraid even as the passenger and continue to hold on to the door handle and press my imaginary break pedal when I think we are going too fast. The highways here are crazy everyone is travelling at around 130km/h and changing lanes with a seconds notice...all i can say is I'm glad I'm not the one driving. We have been given a GPS to find our way around which has come in handy. Now normally we are both quite apposed to these devices and think they are a cheaters way to get around, but I'm really glad we have one here. She is so helpful and never gets angry at us even when we constantly miss the turns she advises us to take. The only bad thing I'll say about her is that she keeps telling us to make u-turns on 10 lane highways....I don't thinks so Marcy! (that's what we have named her by the way, I think she sounds like someone named Marcy and is secretly laughing at our inability to follow simple instructions)

So far we have checked out Farmers Market and the Grove where we had delicious Gumbo and found the happiest Christmas place in the city. Amazing Christmas decorations combined with all my favourite shops...i was in heaven! Then we took a drive through Rodeo Dr, Beverly Hills and then to Santa Monica where we strolled for miles down the beach at sunset.

Dinner was Panns - an original fifties diner, where we had fried chicken, biscuits, pulled pork and onion rings. All American Goodness!

Finally we went to Manhattan Beach for a quick after dinner stroll. It's like an upscale version of Byron bay with lots of bars, restaurants, and sparkly Christmas lights. It was a little quiet but I'm sure its a great place to be in the summer months.

Leaving San Francisco

It took two weeks in San Francisco to recover from the city that never sleeps, but after being in solid holiday mood all this time we feel sufficiently refreshed, nourished and have caught up on all that sleep we missed.

Good points about San Francisco:

• Funky art deco buildings everywhere


• Funky art deco trams and cable cars that are still in service


• Smiles on everyone's faces


• Best Yum Cha outside Hong Kong (in Jannie's expert opinion)


• Anti gravity ensures furniture sticks to the side of buildings


• There is a really good Indian restaurant that is also an Irish pub.


• $2.50 cocktails, $1 draught beer, free pool in the four hours of happy hour each day


• Great sourdough!


• North Beach is all the funky, groovy parts of Sydney squashed into one convenient walking distance

Bad points:

• Public transportation is SLOW! (Stopping at every corner is a good idea, why?)


• There is no escape from the buskers when waiting in line for the cable cars


• The fog is really, really cold (which can be depressing when the lovely warm sun is shining just over the hill - and Jannie wants to point out that fog is Bad For Hair)


• There are far too many good points and not enough bad points and we are leaving today

So I really came to like this city. There is a certain vibe here that is really comfortable - like, here in the land of plenty, it was this city where living the good life became an art form.