Days 18 - 22 (ish) Santa Fe + Durango

At the tail-end of our time in SF we visited the SF Museum of Modern Art which we all enjoyed; I was very happy to see one Frida Kahlo (one of my favourite artists – any woman  with jet black hair, a mono-brow and a moustache gets my vote every time).

We then went over to Ghiradelli Gardens where we had our daily pic taken. San Francisco is one of T’s favourite cities in the world, and we hope our occasional need to visit H&M wasn’t too upsetting for him.

Travelling from SF to Santa Fe was uneventful and Southwest Airlines did us proud ( a bit like Easy Jet but with bigger planes). Santa Fe is a lovely place and New Mexico is absolutely new to us all. The adobe, low slung buildings are very particular and beautiful; Santa Fe has a rich history of Mexicans, Indians, and settlers and one of the main buildings around which the town is built was erected in 1660  -  very old by US standards. The town was full to bursting with art and crafts and I surprised the family by not buying anything other than a brass guitar pick for Bill. Our daily pic was taken by two of the most lazy and odd Policemen I’ve ever met – straight out of central casting. We first encountered them sitting having coffee and doughnuts at a cafe and then bumped into them again sitting in the gardens of the Cathedral where they were also sitting around doing nothing except looking bored and overpaid. However, one of them was up for taking our pic, athough the other one looked like he’d prefer to shoot us than help us out...

Not as many people begging in Santa Fe as in SF, but we heard the most interesting sales pitch so far from anyone asking for money:

Can you spare some money for my dog. He’s an insomniac and I need to buy him some pills.

In the evening there was music and dancing (advertised as ‘Free Dancing’ as opposed to being charged I guess..) in the main square and we witnessed some extremely weird individuals letting their hair down. Drugs may have been involved, but frankly, at their age, there is no excuse for such ridiculous behaviour and I could hardly bear to watch. The Bees were keen to video it all and put it on You Tube – This generation !!!

Today we drove from Santa Fe to Durango, so have entered the State of Colorado. What a beautiful drive it was too – the most amazing scenery: huge, red rocks, vast skies in New Mexico and then rather greener views in Colorado. We saw a couple of actual Cowboys, and some very poor dwellings, and drove through a couple of Indian reservations (all with casinos). We also crossed the Rio Grande – a not terribly impressive river at this time of year. Santa Fe is 7000 ft above sea level, so Tim found it very hard work running, and even walking around felt slightly tiring and headachey. Fascinating.

I have lost track of days due to my computer problems, but I reckon this (Tuesday) must be about Day 22 or 23 and we are in Durango for 3-4 days, staying in the Strater Hotel, built in 1880 and which has real live dancing girls (dressed from back then ) in the saloon. Tim seems very keen to visit.

Day 18 San Francisco

We started off by having breakfast back at the Farmers Market, made all the more merry by there being a gluten free cake stall (yippee!) after which we took another tram to a different part of the city and ended up in the Japanese quarter. We have not yet had a tram or bus ride in San Francisco without encountering at least one, if not a handful, of completely mad people. Today was no exception. The Bees even saw somebody getting on a bus carrying a table. I have also noticed that the city has many more beggars than London, and plenty of them are frankly rude and aggressive (no way to increase takings in my book). Tim also managed to take a taxi ride today with a driver who was high and his cab had no seatbelts, so we feel lucky he made it back...particularly as he is the only person who knows his way round the map/bus and tram routes. I only ever take notice of my way round if I am in charge, so, as I am not in charge this holiday, if I venture off on my own (as I did this afternoon) T has to sit me down on a bench and talk me through directions for 20 minutes or so, with me holding the map the girlie way. It’s a good thing he loves me.

I went to the gym this morning and did some actual running. I ended up looking a little like Jimmy Carter when he was trying to finish his marathon and I was perspiring for so many hours after, my freshly applied) makeup slid off my face and gently pooled at the top of my T-shirt. Not a good look.

I am having awful trouble with my virus-ridden computer, but will persevere as long as possible and am grateful to my guest editors for helping me out over the past couple of days. What T forgot to say yesterday was that the youngish girl we asked to take our daily picture aboard the Sausalito ferry bolted when we asked to take her picture! And who can blame her.

Heirloom tomatoes

Riding the tram

Day 18 daily pic

Nice Italian lady who took daily pic

Day 17: San Francisco

Thursday
Guest contributor: T
We ventured out of the hotel for breakfast, looking for a change, and some change out of $100 :(. they saw us coming though - our order of 4 orange juices turned out to be, literally, 4 pints of freshly squeezed juice, defeating even Bill. Slightly dodgy start to the day, with Bella spilling coffee on her not really coffee-coloured brand new cream-coloured jeans. It came out though - possibly simply shocked out by the naval-strength language.
Speaking of navies, we then took a tram to the ferry. The trams are rather marvellous; ours was a restored Milanese tram built in the 1920s, and still boasting its original notices: Vietato Sporgersi, and so forth (if I wrote a detective novel set in Italy - for which, disappointingly, I have no plans - that would be the name of the hero).
The Ferry building has been made over into a fab, manure-free farmers' market; at this point would be inserted a photo of the T-shirt from a splendid mushroom stall, bearing the slogan 'got shrooms', cunningly referencing back to Bill's drug escapades. However I have sadly to report that A's PC has been commandeered by Ukrainian organised crime, and is thus not allowing us to do stuff like uploading photos - it's too busy hacking into MasterCard and Santander and so forth; so for the time being, no photos.
We took the ferry to Sausalito, and very nice it was too to chug across the bay under a gentle sun. The route took us past Alcatraz, where I overhead the best putdown since Jack Nicholson in that old movie where he's a naval guard escorting a prisoner to jail - can't recall the title - he takes the crim kid into a bar for a drink, and the barkeep says he can't serve them, because the Shore Patrol might be along and he'll get into trouble. 'I am the goddam Shore Patrol' growls Jack. Well anyway: a man of about my age - in the prime of life - pushes to the rail at the stern to take a photo of Alcatraz, but then lingers for some time, after which the German family behind him, not unreasonably and in impeccable English, ask him to move, as he is standing right in front of them and blocking their view. To which he responds: 'my father did time there, all right? I'm just spending a minute remembering my father'. To which there was no immediate riposte.
Sausalito is charming and reminded us of various Mediterranean/Swiss resorts. It is famous for its brothels - sadly no longer with us - and its association with various writers, notably Jacks Kerouac and London. It also snubbed William Randolph Hearst, refusing him admission to the Yacht Club - a bit like the Garrick turning down Rupert Murdoch. Consequently he built Hearst Castle down the coast, instead of here as he originally intended, thereby depriving Sausalito of billions of tourist dollars over the decades - touché.
We went our various ways in the afternoon. My path took me to the Contemporary Jewish Museum - definitely a minority sport in the Brooks family - a dazzling building by Daniel Liebeskind. The featured exhibit was on the life of (San Francisco-born) Gertrude Stein. I have to report that she and Alice B Toklas were categorically not the only female pairing to be seen. Stein's father made a mint investing in the city's tram system, thereby allowing her to build her collection of Picassos and Matisses. A great deal of infrastructure and transport money in this country has been recycled into oil paintings, and I can think of worse things on which to spend it - wine and women being the traditional defaults ( though Gertie did lavish some of her cash on Alice, and apparently enjoyed a tipple, too).
The 3 younger Brookses spent the evening at Rise of the Planet of the Apes, starring Renaissance Man James Franco; a treat I felt able to eschew. And so to bed.

Farmers Market

The Bees still thinking

Day 17 - somewhat windswept

Alcatraz from the ferry

UNFINISHED Day 16 San Francisco

This blog is not Annie’s blog today; it’s the Bs’ blog. No credit should be afforded to Ann Brooks.

Little B here, several cool things happened today. We started the day by going out to Haight Ashbury which is a street lined with vintage shops and places to buy pot smoking paraphernalia.  We were there to visit one shop in particular: Wasteland.  It was freakin’ sweet. Big B was in heaven. I’ll let her talk about that.

We then went down the road in search of a taxi, but instead stumbled across Amoeba music store, which we visited in Hollywood, that one was way bigger, but it was still a cool place, I found a really rare White stripes record which is one of the last singles they released on Jack White’s independent label: Third Man Records, and it’s scented and there’s only a couple hundred copies. I’m down to my last 6 dollars though, so I didn’t buy it.

Just before the music store, there was a charming group of individuals of colour who pointed me out  to each other as I approached. One of the guys nodded at me and said: “Hey little man.” to which I replied:

                “Hey.”

                His larger, bespectacled friend said in a surprisingly high pitched voice asked me: “Shrooms?” to which I replied in as blunt and disapproving a tone as I could manage:

                “No.”

                It was the first time I had ever been offered magic mushroom, but not the first time I’d been offered drugs by a stranger, not even the first or last time in the day. That was the funniest encounter, though.

Last night though, we witnessed something truly amazing. It was an infomercial for the best new fitness programme around: Insanity. Insanity is a revolutionary programme which uses max interval techniques to have you ripped in 60 days. It’s easy to use and the results are instantly visible, or your money back.  And Insanity will give you gifts to help your progress. You’ll get a booklet of healthy, protein rich meals, an easy to use calendar of your daily routines, and a booklet explaining each individual exercise you’ll do. It’s concise and to the point; “we want you working out, not reading!” Make sure you visit Getinsanity.comBig B’s turn now, I reckon.

Ok, Big B here now. I was indeed in heaven in Wasteland, one of the biggest vintage shops I’ve ever been to, it truly was a great collection, I could’ve trawled through there for hours. After Bill had declined the drugs, and browsed Amoeba we grabbed a cab over to Cow Hollow where we had a lovely lunch at ‘Rose’s Cafe’, although it was slightly tarnished by the rather graphic conversation the table of ladies lunching next to us were having about breastfeeding.  Nice. However, this wasn’t the most eventful meal of the day, oh no.

Later on we went to Coit Tower which was built by Lilian Coit, she was rescued from a fire at age 8, and then became the unofficial ambassodor for the SF Fire dept. There was a little chineese man giving a short talk in the elevator up there, and .

There also appears to be a peeping Tom across the road from our hotel, we kept seeing the occasional flash from outside our hotel window, we had a look, and found a man in his apartment across from us taking photos of the hotel, presumably hoping someone had left their lights on and curtains open. After we stood looking for about a minute, he turned off his light but proceeded to take more photos. Creepy. 

Graffiti on Haight St.

Daily Pic: Coit Tower.

Our picture taker (in blue)

View from Coit Tower.

BB&A on the cable car

Wasteland. Duuuuude.

Bill channeling Musselini in little Italy

Day 15 San Francisco

We left Big Sur to head up to San Francisco, and found the hotel after only a relatively small amount of Tim and I screaming at each other.  (No photos)

Before we left Carmel though we went to see the Carmel Mission, a delightful little place with beautiful gardens and a nice and (for the US) very old church. In the shop we found BibleOpoly (as opposed to Monopoly) which looked great fun, and Bella bought a Seatbelt Prayer which keeps you safe in your car, and will live in Alexa (our new car, also known as The Chung Mobile), when we get back and Bella’s driving lessons start in earnest.

The Marriot is about the size of Redbourn on a busy day – there are 1500 rooms, and walking to our rooms is like walking around on an ocean liner. It has very good showers, and no signs of raccoons. The kids were planning on trying out the pool later which doesn’t close until 11pm.

We went to Chinatown for dinner and met the most assertive waiter any of us have ever encountered. He had the following conversation with Bella (brave man):

Bella: Can I also please have some fried rice?

Waiter: No. You share with him. He prenty rice.

Bella: He’s having beef rice, and I would like egg fried rice please.

Waiter: No. Prain rice or his rice.

(NB If I’d had this conversation with B, I know exactly what her next line would have been, but she managed the following without resorting to any bad language)

Bella: No rice for me then.

The conductor on the cable car we went on had a similar no-nonsense approach to his people-skills. It took us to Fisherman’s wharf, a charm-free tourist area where the most interesting thing (if a little upsetting) was an injured seagull almost being run over by a limo. Not a sight one sees in Harpenden very often....

For California, San Francisco has a much cooler climate but it’s still hotter than the first 2 weeks of July we had back home when I had to tie myself to a kitchen chair so as not to put the central heating on. We’re here for five days, so have unpacked and are ready for anything.

Bee, The Younger

Day 15 daily pic

unsuspecting man who took daily pic

The Bees hit San Francisco

Carmel Mission

Cable car

Carmel Mission

Day 14 Big Sur

Today we drove to Monterey in order to go whale watching and we were not disappointed! We saw a couple of Humpback whales (one Mum with a calf) but even better, we saw a Leatherback Sea Turtle, a very rare thing indeed. In fact, one of the guys who works on the boat has only seen a dozen or so  of them in 20 years – they are an endangered species, so we felt very privileged, although it did bring on some feelings of our missing Junior, so we had to watch a few videos of the little critter (current favourite, him getting to the edge of the kitchen floor and losing his nerve). There was quite a swell so I overdosed on seasick tablets and spent rest of the day half asleep, but at least I wasn’t one of the many people hurling left and right (not all of them taking into account the direction of the wind). Bella also decided not to chance it, but Bill seems to have inherited his grandfather’s sea legs and blithely looked right as rain while the majority of us turned green.

Before we left Deetjuns in the morning, I found an excellent journal entry referring to the limited space in the shared bathroom: “ I’ve never had to sit on a toilet side-saddle before”. I laughed so much I nearly hit my head on the chest of drawers. I’d go so far as to say I haven’t laughed so much since the late 20^th century. We then spent a few moments reminiscing about Tim collapsing on the living room floor laughing while watching the episode of Extras where Ronnie Corbett is taking drugs in the toilet. Happy days.

Monterey itself was a little too crowded with tourists for our liking and the claim that the Aquarium is ‘probably the best in the world’ made me think they’ve never been to Boston.

While we are here, London seems to be imploding – no coverage whatsoever on the TV though, as they are too busy watching the US/world economy go down the toilet in real time.

I am such a complete flake that I asked the Boss (Big Sir) whether I could stay in Carmel last tonight so as to avoid feeling sick on the roads back to Deetjuns. I think Bellsie thinks it’s so I can have a decent shower. She was awake for hours last night listening to raccoons/mice/creatures with small toe-nails scratching their way over her roof. Roll on The Marriot!!! 

No daily Photo!!!

Day 13 Big Sur

We went on a nice long walk today, way up high in the mountains where the views were spectacular. We are in hippy-central here, and half way up there was a shrine to Buddha where people had left various offerings, amongst them, a cheese knife. We came across a nice willing couple to do our daily pic although they seemed a lot more interesting when the guy had his T-shirt off.

In the evening we went to a restaurant called Nepenthe, on the site where Orson Wells built a cottage for his then wife, Rita Hayworth. Nice spot. We were just admiring the view and ordering some drinks and an appetizer (and watching  a Blue Jay help himself to a few sachets of sugar, having lifted off and discarded the top few sachets of sweetener) when a group of five people (not a family we think) left the restaurant and the alpha male of the pack went for the others, saying, “ you ungrateful shits, it’s me who works all day to earn the money to pay for that meal” and started completely yelling and screaming, but sadly moved them away from where we were. I was keen to follow them and take some photos, but was persuaded not to. Amazingly, some 90 minutes later, after a very enjoyable meal, we found them all still going at it, hammer and tongs. We thought we should definitely stay and watch and maybe offer some advice, but it was approaching my bedtime (8.50pm).

These twisty roads in Big Sur have loads of laybys, allegedly where you can pull over to admire the views. Personally I think they are where you can throw up when the going gets tough.

Saw a man entering Deetjuns for breakfast this morning with a pet parrot on a leash - maybe he’s trained it to fend off raccoons...if so we'd be interested in borrowing it.

Day 13

Nice couple who took our pic

Day 12 Cambria to Big Sur

We travelled north along Highway 1 to Big Sur, and found ourselves in a bizarre little hotel called Deetjuns Inn. That’s bizarre with a capital B. No locks on the doors for example, just a very small catch from the inside. I can only imagine this is because the Americans who come to visit Big Sur are in search of Spiritual Awakening. There are spiritual gardens, spiritual art, and spiritual walks everywhere you look. People are way too busy working on their spirituality to be bothered with being burglars. They did say to lock your valuables in your car though (which we did with a very British thoroughness). The information sheet also came with another warning:

“Big Sur’s hungry raccoons come out after dark and seem to know if you have food in your room! We suggest you keep any food in your car at night to prevent midnight visits from these cute but persistent marauders. All of us at Deetjun’s hope that you will enjoy your stay at the Inn”. Highly unlikely if we have raccoons in our bedrooms I would say...and when they say ‘food’, are raccoons clever enough to know that the Lemon Whip handcream I nicked from The Fogcatcher Inn isn’t proper food...and how do they get in? Can they come down the chimney? Do they get in through smallish cracks? The Bees and I were in enough of a spin by this horrifying dilemma that we had to have a private conversation about it without Tim (who was heard to say “Anybody would think there in the middle of f***ing Borneo”). We came up with a three-point plan to ensure our ongoing safety while here. It crossed my mind we could sleep in the car. Borneo be damned.

The place is run as a non-profit-making foundation, “established to preserve the restaurant and Inn for transient guests so that the public may enjoy the natural beauty, charm and scenery of Big Sur Inn, as requested by Helmuth ‘Grandpa’ Deetjun is his will”. Some of those profits could go to providing guests with keys to their rooms, and better showers (one of the Bees and my lips are sealed as to which one, had conniptions on seeing the dribble of water pretending to be a shower) – just a thought.

However, it is charming, in a home-spun, insecure and frightening kind of way. I look forward to becoming more spiritual and less anxious over the next couple of days. On the way here Highway 1 also turned into a nasty Alton Towers-type thrill-ride and continued in an unmerciful series of twists and bends (with signs warning of rock-slides) so by the time we got here I was decidedly green about the gills. A couple of years ago on a holiday in Italy I became nauseous lying on a lilo in a swimming pool which had nobody else in it, so I have to admit, it doesn’t take much.

In 1984 there was such a massive storm in Big Sur that a large proportion of the Highway got washed out to sea and you couldn’t get from one end of the area to the other for 14 months while it was rebuilt. They are also dogged by big fires every now and again  - an unforgiving landscape. Very spiritual though.

Each room here has journals (going back over a decade) where people leave their innermost (mainly spiritual) thoughts. We did come across one though which said, ‘the journals in this room are really boring. The ones in my sister-in-law’s room are way better – full of drinking, sex and debauchery’. Guests seem to want to write dreadful poetry although there are some quite good sketches.  Bella bought a stamp of Obama which she put all over one page with the words ‘Yes we can’ which will no doubt wind up some future guests.

 We left it rather late to find anyone to take our daily pic, so put it on a timer. Will do better tomorrow.

Roger and out.

Daily pic Day 12

Home to anxiety and raccoons

Mama Brooks reading to a Bee

Day 11 Cambria

Thanks to William Randolph Hearst, there is not only an incredibly eccentric and crazy castle on top of a hill here in the San Simeon district, but there are also zebra grazing in the ranch next to Highway 1.(Hearst Castle) What a guy! This time the money came from mining, via his Dad, but then William went on to do a good job with newspapers and magazines. Mind you, he did have some kind of financial crisis (skated over by the guide) when he decided to get rid of his animals which made up the largest privately owned zoo in the US (including polar bears!) which is why you find zebra grazing just up  the road from Hearst Castle. I can only imagine he couldn’t sell them (zebras? No thanks) so thought, stuff it, I’ll get them over the cattle grid and they can make their own way in the world just like Daddy did.  The Castle was well worth a visit and it looked a very cool place to hang out in the 20’s and 30’s if you moved in those circles. We were very taken by the 2 pools, and overheard one of the guides saying you can hire the outdoor pool – if we ever win the lottery that might well be on our list of things to do....

Not only did we see zebras, we also went to see some Elephant Seals who come to visit a cove about 5 miles up the coast from the Castle at this time of year where they work really hard on their moulting skills. Most of them were lying so still doing absolutely nothing that we thought they were playing Sleeping Lions. An occasional nose twitching, or a flick of some sand (to keep them cool?) over their backs gave them away.

Tomorrow we head north once again, up to Big Sur where we are staying in a quaint little place called Deetjuns Inn where there is NO WI-FI!!!! I will post more holiday news as and when I can (ie when the family can no longer stand not being able to download The Guardian, watch You Tube clips and check facebook) or when we get to San Fransisco.

Roger and out

Day 11 pic

Lady who unsuspectingly took our daily pic

Hearst Castle

The Bees thinking

ZEBRAS!!!

An Elephant Seal