Santa Barbara :: USA
Going back to Cali...
Places: San Francisco, Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo, Big Sur & Santa Barbara.
Coolest thing I did: Big Sur. I can't describe it, it has to be seen.
Coolest thing I didn´t know: California is just chock full of farms. I pictured all palm trees and beaches.
It appears that my last trip to the San Francisco Bay area that I'd been uncannily lucky with the weather. It turns out it's usually a whole lot colder than the temperature I'd just left in Las Vegas, but also that it varies quite a lot depending on where in the city or bay you happen to be standing at any given moment. The hills all through the city cause micro climates, meaning it can be 10 degrees colder just by going down into a valley or up a hill. Unfortunately, it turned out to be pretty uniformly rainy for my whole time staying in the city.
The hostel is just off Union Square, giving me the central tourist friendly location I never had last time I visited for work, but it also meant there were lots of pan handlers and crack heads congregating around outside. Not a big issue, but coming back at night never felt quite safe. Lets just say it adds some colour to your day when bearded drunks scream obscenities at you as you leave for the morning. Still, can't possibly complain about the location. As close to the middle of everything as you can get.
It was a trip of visits this time. Cisco had very recently moved Dave from his home in Amsterdam to somewhere in Silicon Valley and he already had his first two visitors on the same day as I arrived. It was good to see him again after about 3 years and he spent the rest of the weekend playing tour guide with his car. We went out for a good Italian in North Beach on Saturday night (though we sat in the basement and it was lucky we didn't get to eat in the meat smoking room like some people had to) and then he took us out to the Napa Valley on Sunday to do some wine tasting.
I'm assured that the scenery is spectacular in Napa, but I can't say either way. It rained so constantly that we really couldn't see much but the vague outline of some mountains on either side of the vineyards, but I can imagine it would be quite a scene. Still, we did get stuck into some pretty good wine and I learned that there is a grape called Zinfandel, and that it's a red. I also learned that Australians pioneered sparkling red wine, and they had a copy cat at one of the places that was 60% Pinot Noir and 40% of the aforementioned Zinfandel. Man, that stuff is fun in a bottle. Its like Champagne, only redder, but with similar light headed joy.
So I had Monday to pretty much be a tourist around the city, which was something I had to pack into half a day last time I was in San Francisco. I took a bus up to Haight-Ashbury to see what's become of the hippies. Just to give you a taste, the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets has a Gap on it. It's still a pretty cool place in town to hang about in but the counter culture revolution collided with market reality quite some time ago so you are reduced to buying tie dyed T-shirts or bongs if you want to relieve the old spirit of the place. I did, however, have a vegetarian meal even though I wasn't forced to. It must be the vibe.
I then went down to the Castro to see how the gay people live. Much like Sydney, there are lots of clothes shops and eateries that are far superior to most other spots in the city. Them poofs have taste, if nothing else. Having got a brief respite from the rain I crossed over into the Mission district to see some nastier looking new eateries (gentrification appears to be a couple of years behind) and lots of book shops. I also had a burrito thats as good as any I've ever had. I'd forgotten about that from last time.
The thing I did see this time in the Mission that I missed last time was the actual mission. Californian towns all tended to be built up around a Catholic Mission so there is always a monestary/hacienda looking building with terracotta roof tiles and great big bells in arches in every town. It reminds you that despite the modern Americans complaints that there are too many Latin immigrants in their country, the Spanish speakers have been in the area a whole lot longer than the English speakers.
I went over to Oakland to meet up with Colin, an old work mate from Sun in Sydney, and it was good to see him, even if it didn't look like he'd slept in about 3 days. The birth of your second child will do that. I also saw Rob and Patrick, who gave me my first job at Sun all those years ago, down in Santa Clara at a place that graded their chicken wings from mild to thermonuclear. I hadn't seen any of these guys in about 5 years, and it made the detour back to San Francisco even more worth it. I'm throughly impressed with the place once again. That mix of nature and urban lifestyle right in the middle of an earthquake zone has to be unique in the world.
I picked up my hire care and drove south, following highway 1 into the literary heartland of the US. John Steinbeck, Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac all loom large over northern California, which I have to say is not what I expected. A coastline hugged by mountains, the space in between inhabited by rows and rows of farmland and the cliffs breaking out into beaches every now and then. North of Santa Cruz I was making my way through redwood forests and rolling hills. I spent the first night at the surf mecca of Santa Cruz, but unfortunately, the weather had cut the tops off the waves so they looked a lot more like speed humps. Even in those conditions there seemed to be about a thousand people out competing for the waves. I'd hate to see what it gets like when the surf is really good. Still, it was a nice little town, with a long beach to walk along and cliffs overlooking it. Sitting on the cliff tops and watching the sun set over the surfers in the water below was a mellowing feeling, vindicating my decision to continue slowly down the coast instead of flying.
The stretch between Santa Cruz and Morro Bay lives up to it's reputation as one of the most worthwhile in the entire US. The highway is a grey ribbon stitched in and out of looming great cliffs and every time you round the next bend its yet another spectacular photo opportunity. From Monterey you follow 17 mile road through golf courses looking over rocky islands and trees that are so gnarled you'd compare them to wafts of smoke if they weren't so still. Seals roll around on the beaches and sea birds sit on the rocks in their thousands, resulting in the black weed on the base of the rocks giving way to snow caps of bird poo. Even if you know what it is, it still makes a stunning visual effect against the sheer blue sky.
The area around Big Sur is the stuff of legends. This is where the road barely clings for dear life to the sides of green hills, broken up by the occasional granite bridge that makes driving there possible without backtracking kilometres inland. I don't know how comfortable I am when the bridges are described as “historic” though, it makes them sounds like they were once safe, but now, who knows. I'm not sure what it's like in summer, but I had whole stretches of this beautiful highway to myself for lots of the trip, which is good when you're scared to go more than 30 or 40 miles and hour around most of the hairpins. It took far longer than I though it would, meaning I did miss out on seeing the Hearst Castle, which is something I would have liked to do had they not made it so hard ($20 and a 1.45 hour tour is required, meaning you really need half a day). It does look like an actual castle, perched up on a hilltop over the peasants living down in San Simeon. I think the days are gone when second generation media barons can get away with lording it over the poor like that, I can't imagine what would have happened had a Murdoch or Packer decided to do the same thing in Sydney these days, probably be frowned upon.
I've noted that hostels in Northern California seem to be run by the refugees of the Berkley hard left. Unless you are ready for talks of organic farmers markets, why Bush is evil and how to make your own clothing out of hemp then this may not be the scene for you. The one I spent the night in at San Lous Obispo was the epitome of it. Any attempt at a rational conversation very quickly veered into evils perpetrated on the world by the Bush-Cheney junta. It's ok if you're willing to listen to the other side of the argument, but the cult like mentality is a bit too much. Still, it was fun night in S.L.O so the streets were blocked off and I got to eat BBQ chicken kebabs on the street, which was tops. I also re-affirmed that Fat Tire is the best mass produced micro brew (a common occurrence here) available. I'd been struggling with the American beer until California, where they appear to just make lots of micro brew, turning it into a contradiction in terms, but making good beer available in pubs that don't brew their own.
So I've arrived in Southern California, having dodged a hefty storm and looked at loads of beaches and ended up in Santa Barbara. It seems like a nice kind of spot, I'm even considering staying a second day if the rain clears up overnight.