The part where Ruth lays on the floor screaming, with flailing arms and legs.....

And I do NOT want to go home.  Usually by this point I am ready for my own bed, a change of clothes, some reality...this time in no way do I want to get on that plane back to the UK.  

After reluctantly leaving the picture gallery of the Hollywood Museum and finding the gorgeous ones again after they re parked the car, we felt faint with hunger, after all, it had been at least 3 hours since we had eaten anything and the diner right next door looked perfect.  It turned out it was the diner used in America Graffiti and is complete with booths, bus boys in little paper caps  and   aprons and seating at the counter.  We order shakes and sandwiches and  of course they come with a cherry on the top, simply perfect.  

We sit and congratulate ourselves on yet another amazing day, Daisy tells us how much she wants to go the contemporary music college right across the road (they just had to go in and have a look as they went to park the car... Lots of kids in black with long hair carrying guitars, what is not to love) and Sam is giddy with excitement about going to look at the Hollywood sign.

Unable to contain himself, or us, any longer we are ushered to the best vantage point to see it... And it is THERE, it really is right there!  Amazingly Old Hollywood, still right there for all to see.

A brief interlude where we are approached by a man that tells us we must be English as we have pizzazz (yes, yes I do have pizzazz, sparkling pizzazz) this has been the wonderful thing about America, every one we have met, from the guys on the street, to the people in the stores, to locals behind us in the queue at the gas station, EVERYONE has been so friendly, so charming, so eager to chat.  Not because they want to sell us anything, but just because they want to chat, share an exchange, be friendly.  And I like being friendly.  Of course Sam would happily stand and talk to anyone all day, so getting him out of stores at times has been hard, but even Daisy is now in the stride of being here and is answering the many many people that have complimented her on her hair.  Daisy has Pizzazz

Wandering on, our flip flops melting and sticking to the sidewalk we get to Mann's Chinese Theatre and again, it is everything we hoped it would be.  Gasp at the size of Judy Garlands feet, Sam shrieks at the Star Wars prints and I take endless pictures of long dead silver screen idols hands and feet and am genuinely moved by the messages they put there and the original spirit of why they did it (yes yes, I know it was  a publicity stunt to get more people to come to his movie house, but to see prints from Clarke Gable and Mary Pickford- amazing)  I make Sam measure his hands in the Clint Eastwood cast (Sam's chat up line, long long ago, in a galaxy far far away was that he was as tall as Clint Eastwood) and even Daisy finds casts to coo over.

This is Hollywood, the Hollywood I have dreamed about coming to.  The studios, the movies, the premiers, the lights, the heat... From Chaplin to Clara Bow, from Marilyn to John Barrymore, I have dreamt about seeing this, being part of this, even just for a moment and with the museum and now this, it really is still here.

We leave and decide we simply must see Beverly Hills and I wish we had downloaded a map of silver screen stars homes.  The streets are wide, clean and unbelievably quiet.  HUGE houses hidden by high walls and palm trees, with columns supporting the highest ceilings and the biggest windows I have ever seen....I daydream as we are driving along that I am being taken home by me chauffeur after at long day on set to lay by the pool with a glass of champagne in my hand and a chef cooking me dinner.....

After a drive down Rodeo drive, my chauffeur decides he has had enough of all this driving and our trusty SatNav takes us back to Venice, but not on the freeway, which is sooo much better!  It's is hard to get a sense of the size of LA and how each area relates to everywhere else as we have been pretty much tied to the Freeway and it is disorientating to do it all without a map.  It is great to just drive through the different areas, past the bars and stores that all SCREAM at us to explore more...

And so we have to go home.  Final dinner by the pool, with our lovely Gariella joining us to tell us amazing stories about the history of Venice Beach, drinking wine and making me feel as if I am with my own family.  She tells us we must come back and not only that, would we like her house over Xmas, for free, just looking after the cat... Oh and she also has a car as long as we get on the insurance....and we tell Daisy and she looks like she is going to explode and Sam thinking about what he can sell so we can afford the airfare and the fairy lights in the trees and the CAT in the tree and the banana trees from Douglas Fairbanks.  It is all too much and I simply can not sleep for thinking about it all.

And now, right now we are at LAX

Heaven, I'm in heaven and my heart beats so I that can hardly speak.....

HOLLYWOOD!!!!! I had thought that with the American desire to always have new and shiny, to obliterate their past as they do not feel it is history worth keeping (hence thinking that Europe is so 'full of history') that there would be nothing left of Hollywood, real silver screen, golden age, Clarke Gable, Mary Pickford and Errol Flynn Hollywood, but there is! Simply the most wonderful, heart lifting, spirit soaring museum and it is just off Hollywood! And you can feel the glamour and the excitement all around!

The day starts as I wish every day for the rest of my life would start, sunshine, ocean, skating, cycling, iced coffee, sand, pancakes.  I just can not get enough of the architecture, the different styles of house, one moment tiny Spanish pueblo in ochre with roses around the edges, the next floor to ceiling windows with chrome and cacti.  I amble around the streets before meeting the gorgeous ones on the beach and my legs feel good.  If I could cycle everywhere for the rest of my life I would be happy.

But then we want to be IN Hollywood.... We program into our ever compliant and helpful SatNav all the places we want to see and she delivers us safely.  Kat Von D's High Voltage tattoo place first, not as cool or as hip it has to be said as the one in New York... People are not as friendly, although the area is  awesome and I wish, as I have wished endlessly whilst we have been away, that we had more time to explore.  And then we are in Hollywood.  Of course, you go 2 streets back from Mann's Chinese Theatre and you can park for free, in a beautiful palm tree lined apartment lined avenue, so we park and eagerly race into the stunning Art Deco building that was the Max Factor head quarters and is now the Hollywood Museum. 

And I am head over heels in love.  A million things to see....Here a pair of the Ruby Slippers from Oz, I can see each handstiched sequin (darker than the red they dyed the silk of the shoes with, bright red would have read as orange in Technicolor) and each bugle bead.

Max Factor's makeup boxes sit in glass cabinets, each of the pansticks worn quite specifically on one side. 

 Each of the rooms carefully decorated to enhance the colouring of the stars of the time (pale green just for red heads as it sets off the red complexion to perfection, pale pink for blondes....)

Sam & Daisy vanish as I am totally absorbed into Hollywood glamour.  I am lost in a world of powder and wig making, thinking of my great grandmother and the stars she made up and how she must have worked with similar tools and in similar chairs, over faces like the ones I can see in the pictures.  It makes me cry. And smile.  I am totally lost.

The is a spectacular Marilyn exhibition on the 1st floor, her beaded dresses from entertaining the troops, and casual outfits she wore and obviously loved from the slight sweat stains that can still be seen. Her dresses are beautiful, it is fantastic to see them and to study her proportions, to see her curves and the size of her feet, there is one dress that was made for her that she is photographed in, but she never wore as it was too small and you can see the rips in it.  But for me, the letters, the bills, her eye drops, her fridge, her make up and pots of cream from beside her bed when she died make me catch my breath.  There is a wonderful photographic exhibition to accompany the flotsam from her life by the photographer that really understood her and allowed her character to shine, George Barris, many of which were taken on Santa Monica beach and I could stand all day looking at her beauty.

The curation of this exhibition is truly remarkable and it is amazing we have caught it as it is due to come down within a matter of weeks.  The collection of her dresses alone I would have paid to go and see, the dress from the Prince and The Showgirl, with the film showing in the background, along side her Capri pants and casual cardigan that she wore when released from hospital, I can hardly catch my breathe!

Even the restrooms are extraordinary as they have been kept as they where in the 20's, as used by the employee's of Max Factor.  Painted the most perfect Art Deco green with chrome fittings, I stayed longer than is decent for any restroom just taking photographs....

The Marilyn exhibition blends into the permanent exhibitions which are equally as awe-inspiring, Theada Bara's jewellery from the 20's Cleopatra unlit and tarnished, Clara Bow's flapper dress hidden at the back of a cabinet with Chaplin's clapper board, scores of original movie posters from the 20's onwards, newspapers from Jean Harlow's death, movie cameras used in the early talkies, and make up, and pictures of make up artists and wig mistresses! Omg, my heart soars to see this! And credits to all those amazing women and men that worked in this industry, you never see them credited....

I have to send Sam & Daisy off to move the car as I simply can not leave the photographs of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks in their pool or the test shots of Marilyn, or the dye samples of Lucille Balls hair.

I am speechless by the end of my time there.  I try to tell the glamorous woman that runs the museum about my Great Grandmother and how she would have worked here in Hollywood but by a twist of fate, but I am too choked up.   Instead, I simply ask that she take my picture.

The wheels that make us happy.

We know we are on a count down.  What is it with holidays that just as you get in the swing of them,  you have to leave? LA is unexpectedly awesome and it feels as if the is far too much left to explore and  I am frothing at the mouth at the thought of having to return to England.  Every road leads to something else I want to see, every corner shows me something exciting and every freeway seems to point towards somewhere even more thrilling than before.

Even the sleeping is easier.  Yes the sun is quite violent in its brightness first thing, but I like that being an early bird and here, I am not insanely early as I am at home.  No 5am here, I wake, yawn, stretch make tea, but at a leisurely 7 or even 8 am.  So we wake, eat breakfast in the open air (another thing I am addicted to, who wants to have breakfast INSIDE?) and the GET out.... I jump on one of the 7 bikes Gabriella puts at our disposal and start to pedal. I swear I am never more happy than when on a bike, no, maybe the only thing that makes me happier is to cycle along the beach, which after pedalling down the back streets ogling the mix of architecture, I do.  I cycle up and down the boulevard looking for the gorgeous ones who have decided they simply MUST roller skate along Venice Beach as the dudes they really are.  And I love it.  Venice Beach wakes up slowly, the drunks slowly packing away their sleeping bags, or roll a spliff or cat call 'hey preeetty lady' or start to get their cardboard signs.  There is nothing threatening, nothing is threatening at 10am. It has the feel of the morning after a free festival in the late 80's.  People just are. And then there are the mums in their tiny bikinis roller skating pushing babies in pushchairs, or men practising kick boxing, or the guys jogging with their tops off, or the groups playing volleyball in the sands. And I love it.  I cycle behind the gorgeous ones along the boardwalk towards Santa Monica pier and they are so cool.

People stop and call out at them as we pass and I adore the, for being so cool.

We wheel all the way to the pier and the all the way back towards the fisherman's pier at the other end.  In the sunshine, along the beach with the ocean in my view and the amazing houses with acres of glass and painted all colours with outdoor beds, or gardens, or pools on their roofs. And I love it.

We race back, shower change and head off to Long Beach, the place Steven, a lovely guy we met in The Castro, has suggested we simply MUST visit to shop as it is called Rockabilly Row.  Again we listen to amazing music on the way there (Elvis radio? Yes please, Underground music? Why thank you) the sun glittering off the million lanes of endless cars.

And Long Beach is great, well, the one road to be fair. Lots of thrift shops to search through and LOTS of vintage shops, HUGE vintage shops with some great great stock.  Now, I love to browse in a good vintage shop, regardless of the prices, I just love to look, feel the fabrics, adore the jewellery, peek into the cases, not necessarily to buy, I am not actually a huge fan of wearing vintage due to the fabrics involved, but I appreciate. And there is much to appreciate here!  Every shop has friendly people who simply want to chat, and we LOVE to chat so it takes us a fair while to get to the end of Rockabilly Row and YES, I finally find a few lovely pieces to buy! An adorable red & black polka dot dress, another  spotty dress and bright yellow bowling shirt....of course Sam finds some GORGEOUS things that make him look even more handsome and even Daisy who has spent all her funds manages to wheedle a couple of tshirts and vintage badges...

We return to Venice content with our purchases, with big beaming smiles on our faces and head towards a great row of surfy shops, bars and restaurants I spied whilst out cycling, just a few blocks from where we live (yes live, am not planning on coming home)  And we eat in an amazing Italian, outdoor piazza, around a fountain, the most attentive waiting staff that seem to bring out the most delicious dough balls every 5 minutes, that also have an honesty wine bottle that you help yourself to and you only pay for how many glasses you tell them you have had (imagine that in England....) with potion sizes made for giants and sauces so fresh I could almost have cooked them myself.  We all laugh a lot.  Daisy eats a HUGE amount of pasta and garlic dough balls.  The car sinks so much when we get in that the door jams on the grass verge.

And I write, I want to capture everything from the last few days, I want to hold on tight to every moment.  I know we are unlikely to ever have this kind of holiday again, the 3 of us and I don't want it to end.  Why, just when you get the hang of being on holiday do you have to go home.

Sharks, Transformers and Ferries Wheels

Bright bright sunshine wakes me up.  Another reason for me to love Venice beach, the sun gets you up BAM it's time to get up now, look at me, I am sparkling off the pool and reminding you you need to be awake and enjoying yourself....LOVE.  

I leave the gorgeous ones sleeping, as they like to do and take a wander to the supermarket which is a couple of blocks away.  I tell myself I am being a wonderful selfless mother and wife, going to get the essentials needed for breakfast but really I just want to indulge in an American supermarket on my own... DAMN It's good.  Aisles and aisles of pointless, tasty, fattening foods.  Pancake mix, pancake syrup, popcorn with butter spray, PB&J all in one jar, squeezey cheese, orange juice that only comes in gallon sizes, a billion types of bagel.  Seriously, do English supermarkets look like this and I just don't notice anymore as I would NEVER buy this stuff at home?  Is there anything more exciting than a supermarket in another country? I want to buy it all, but hold myself back and only buy breakfast (cereal that tastes like America and strawberries, mmmmm, finally fresh strawberries on my cereal)

Upon my return, the gorgeous ones awake and despite a slightly bizarre and sad start to the day as Gabriella's  old, blind dog Gus, has died in the night after falling into the pool so there a tears, but asGabriella  says, 'it feels like a Fellini film' so we hurriedly get ourselves up and out as today we are GOING TO UNIVERSAL!!!! Omg, omg, omg.... I so remember the feeling the first time we went to a theme park in America, it simply felt like a magical place.  Nothing in England ever comes close to the total immersion into fantasy, giving yourself over to absolute pleasure you may say.  So, going to Universal is exciting, something we have all wanted to do this holiday and ohhhh, do we indulge.  From the 8 lane LA highway, gleaming in the sun on the way there we decide today is going to be awesome from start to finish and rather than get frustrated at the endless nose to tail traffic we decide it looks like the sea... A sea of sparkly cars.

And then woooooooo hoooooo, we are in the park... What to go on first? Sam is adamant we have to go on the studio tour first, so we hop aboard...and it's AMAZING.  It is everything that as a teenager I wanted to see, rubber sharks, cheesy story lines including an earthquake in a SF underground tunnel and a Mexican flood (one of my favourite parts was looking behind as we were leaving the  soundstage with the SF earthquake and seeing the truck that moments before was going to plunge down and kill us all, reset back up unto the flys.)  It is all so well rehearsed and slick and FUN!  What is not to love.

Sam loves every second and is giddy when Jaws jumps (predictably, but come on that's half, no all the fun) out of the foaming waters of Amity Island.

I liked the glimpse of the sound stage cafe and Hitchcock's bungalow on the lot and of course the King Kong set piece, but then I love a good scream.

Leaving the tour we race to the next ride, deciding we want to experience as much as we possibly can (considering we have done no exercise and eaten and drank everything in our paths for seemingly weeks now) The Simpsons ride is as much fun as we remember it being, but it does not satiate our need for more more more and we leap (like well fed gazelles) down the escalators and jump on The Mummy ride.  One of the best reasons for coming to any theme park the day AFTER a holiday day, is that there are no queues and we simply run through all the empty lines straight to the front of everything, feeling slightly sorry for all the saps that paid extra for their Fast Pass tickets.  

The Mummy ride is too short and not scary enough, so we rush to the Jurassic Park ride all humming the theme tune and avidly looking for dinosaurs in the bushes.  This was not a disappointing ride as we cooed over plastic dinosaurs and ducked as they shot water at us and then....screamed as we got TOTALLY drenched.  I literally looked as though someone has stood over me with a bucket, no two buckets of water and poured them over my head.  Heaven.  It was so hot it took us only moments to dry off whilst watching others come down the water flume and whilst watching a mum having a what she thought  was a sneaky fag....right in the soak zone. Brilliant.

Giggling we skip over to the Transformers ride and despite being in the same 'car' as Beavis & Butthead we all scream and laugh and shriek and LOVE being thrown around an imaginary wasteland trying to save the All spark from Megatron, or something along those lines  Infact we love it so much we run out, straight around the side and back in! No queue so straight in a car to be spun, bumped, and buffeted again! Brilliant.

Not sue that anything else can really compare to that ride, so we munch it bagels, look at the acres and acres of film studio land from the highest point and wander around the streets of 'London' and 'Paris'.  We decide we really should have a look at the Horror rooms supposedly a collection of Universals horror film memorabilia...amazingly it was a very old fashioned but incredibly well 

executed (!) Haunted House, with some great props, such as Chucky Dolls, some great sets, Frankensteins lab and of course complete with cast members that jump out from the dark corners and make you SCREAM!!!!!! Hilarious fun, even though you know it's coming, even though you have heard the people up ahead, even though at one point we could see over the balcony to the floor below and see monsters grabbing through bars, we still screamed! Psycho coming out of the shower made me shriek, whilst a werewolf made Sam throw women and children after him, and poor Daisy jumped so far she jumped into a wall.  Brilliant.

Nothing really compares to a Haunted House.

We leave the park, arm in arm, skipping to the car (well, metaphorically) and Sam bravely negotiates, with the able assistance of our SatNav that obviously favours America as she is sharp and right on it, the LA traffic to Santa Monica, which we have seen in the distance from Venice Beach.  We arrive at sunset.

It could not be anymore beautiful.  We could not have had a more fun day.  I could not love Sam & Daisy anymore.

And then we saw Douglas Fairbanks banana trees....

Out of the desert to the cooler breeze of the coast.  I was sad to leave Palm Springs, at night it is all lit with fairy lights and every one knows how much I love the sparkles.  Who wouldn't love a sparkly palm tree?

But it was damned hot, and my poor loves were really feeling the roasting heat.  So with some regret we drive to LA, well Venice Beach, well close to Venice Beach.  Again we have that moment where we doubt the pictures on Airbnb and wonder what on earth we have booked ourselves into, especially as the road we turn off of seems like a 6 lane crazy pile up....but then we walk through Gabriella's gate and.....it is almost like coming to see family!  Gabriella is the most friendly Argentian architect who welcomes us into her home with kisses, hugs and tales of when she lived in squats in Portobello in the 70's with Irish punks and knows Estepona in Spain where my mum lives! As we arrive on Labor Day, the last big bank holiday of the summer in the US, Gabriella announces we are to have a BBQ that evening for her daughter and friends and she would LOVE us to come, how could we refuse?

We throw our suitcases in the rooms (simply the most gorgeous 'pool house' but complete with full kitchen, bathroom, HUGE FRIDGE and of course wifi.... Everywhere in the US has wifi, from the smallest cafe, to every house we have stayed in, apart from Vegas, where apparently you can only get plug in... Really??) and head on out to see the sea.  As seaside dwellers I must confess I have been missing the sea, I saw it briefly in SanFrancisco, but to have been without it for nearly 3 weeks is hard so I am hopping with excitement to be close, so close I can smell it and then there it is! 

Complete with classic life saver huts with Pamela and David (well not actually, much MUCH fitter looking than that and effortlessly cool) and the water sparkles, YES! And there are waves to jump and that dump you to the sea bed and the sand is soft and hot and there are pelicans and helicopters and planes with banners and and and.....ahhhhhh. God I love the sea.

So we are in Venice Beach, on Labor Day.  When I mentioned to people we were staying here in LA the response was mixed, well, no not mixed, more horrified with a side order of despair, but, I quite like it.  Yes, it's loud of course and a bit crazy.  But America has been crazy.  We have seen the homeless and the sick and the lame everywhere, from New York to Palm Springs and Venice Beach just seems to sum it all up.  It is very much like Camden by the sea, but more, much more.  We walk the length, see the dread guy on the bike playing the electric guitar, see the guys selling weed on prescription, the shops seeking crap tie dyed tshirts and flip flops and the hippies selling, well just about anything, from airbrushed paintings to Mexican heads.  But.... See beyond that and you see the families with little babies playing in the bars who are out for the day, see the rollerskaters zigzagging between the crowds, see the people biking beside the beach, see the joggers concentrating hard, see the man with a cup on a string in the apartment talking to a girl on the board walk.  We wander down to the skateboard park and stand astounded watching the skaters.  Just skating because they can. Because its fun and because people are watching.  They are amazing.  We watch the guys in the bowl rollerskating, old skool style to hip hop, big rasta guys with crazy American flag trousers with hip young chicks, twisting and dancing under the palm trees with the graffiti in the concrete and the smell of the ocean, mixed with the smell of unwashed hippy and urine.

 

Strangely, I like it.

We return back to the house and find a BBQ in full swing, the fairy lights are on and big long tables are set  up under them and under the trees. Gabriella and Sam exchange stories about living in Notting Hill, we meet her daughters friends, one of whom comes from Wales via Hackney (and couldn't have lived anywhere else in London) and we talk about  changes in Venice beach over the years, architecture (which is stunning in the roads around where we are staying, ranging from tiny Mexican houses, to big square, glass and concrete modernist buildings that you just know are filled with white sofas and maple flooring) and strangely about the banana trees in Gabriella's beautiful garden, which come from the  estate of Douglas Fairbanks.

I am missing being with family this year in France (all my family, extended friends, parents, friends of friends all of us that have spent time in the orchard and around the the table drinking wine and playing cards) and somehow Gabriella makes me feel like I am coming home.

There are only two things you need to know about the desert.....

 There are only two things you need to know about the desert. 

A. It is hot

B. it is vast.

And that really is it, you could perhaps throw in a couple of mountains perhaps, maybe a trailer park even few billions miles. But that's it, other than comedy cacti and MASSIVE trucks with what looks scarily like knives on their wheels, just in case you get too close.  We find an excellent radio station to take us across the desert (50's on 5, 60's on 6 or should we listen to 70's on 7?) and we drive to Palm Springs.

Ahhhh Palm Springs, the most perfect low rise town in the desert mountains.  Laying by the pool I can see the mountains in the back ground, framed by the hot pink bougainvillea and the tall pineapple like palm trees and it is desert hot.  So hot it feels as if you are breathing in fire and I love the feeling of it on my skin.  I know just how bad for me it is, but with my dry itchy psoriasis this is just the most perfect feeling.  I can feel it literally scorching my lungs...wonderful.

Yesterday after depositing a rather flue -y Daisy in the beautiful apartment that is right on the pool at Casa Cody Sam & I wander around the town.  Or the street, as there is really only 1 street in Palm Springs, a beautiful street but that is pretty much it.  The bar we decide upon is cooled with misters and we settle down for a good chat and a few beers before retuning to check on the patient.  There are $4 margaritas and we find a litre of tequila for $14 (I don't drink it ALL of course) all of which, combined with the long drive  and a particular time of the month prove too much and an early night is had.

The morning is bright, dazzling yellows and pinks and greens of the gardens, sizzling bright blue sky and I sit, mainly in the company of Mr R Everett, all day, blissfully day dreaming of New York, theatres, underground clubs Noel Coward.  Sam & Daisy retreat into the coolness (virtually arctic I feel, but each to their own) of the apartment rooms to watch reruns of dreadful films and I breathe in the fire and swim and tie my hair up in a rather fetching 50's hair band, my eyes hidden behind the biggest black glasses and pretend I am a silver screen Hollywood film star escaping from the cameras beside a kidney shaped pool and that Charlie Chaplin will emerge from one of the rooms and ask me if I would like another mimosa daaaarhling (and yes, I really do)

I take a wander once the sun has gone down.... treat myself to a totally delicious iced coffee and a look up Marilyn's  skirt, yes she does have the most wonderful lacey knickers on....

Of course, Palm Springs, is is where Marilyn was 'discovered'.  It is also like a slice of old Hollywood, with stars in the walkways commemorating actors and, it seems, pioneers and cowboys!  I just love it and can imagine retiring to such a place, could the house perched on the mountains be the one of my dreams?

Onwards and upwards.... LA and Santa Monica beach tomorrow and thus our holiday slowly comes to an end, the last stop....I am now totally out of ideas to inspire and drag Sam & Daisy too and other than Universal Studios I think I may just lay by the side of a pool for the rest of the holiday....

Two days in the mountains, two days in the desert. Part 2.

The sky is too big, the mountains too vast, the road too endless, the radio only playing road trip music (Stuck in the middle with you....) Sam and I speculate as to whether the mountains are in fact flats from an extra large sound stage in LA and we are part of a social experiment that is at that very moment being broadcast live to the rest of the nation...oh hang on, they already made that film right?  It is all too perfect, too achingly gorgeous.  We climb higher and higher into the mountains.....and then....DESERT.  Comedy cactuses appear.  If there was a bend in the road, I would expect to see Roadrunner outwitting Whiley Coyote. But there are no bends.  Just miles and miles and MILES of flat flat road that goes on and on into the distance. Every mile  expect to see Vegas in the distance.  We get closer and closer, 30 miles to Vegas, nothing, 20 miles, still nothing, just hills in the distance.  A strange Area 51 type place that is obviously using the suns energy to power hidden underground laboratories, a HUGE cross roads with nothing but gas stations and antique barns (because truck drivers need old lamps too), a hilly billy encampment by the side of the one and only gas station with the customary sherif and random old folk sitting outside checking on the passing trade....

 And then BAM... Vegas baby.  Not quite out of no where, although I am sure at night it must cut an impressive site after hours of no lighting on the freeway. HOLY SHIT.  Massive culture shock.  There are simply no words to even begin to describe what we see.

New Bloody York. The Statue of Bloody Liberty

Omg omg omg omg.  Freaking out in a massive way and all of us screaming Sam does a heroic job of piloting us into the lobby of the Monte Carlo and we are introduced to the delights of Valet parking, simply the only way that I am ever going to park my car again, in fact when I come home I am going to insist that Sam meets me outside the house, takes the keys off me and parks the car discreetly for me.    

And now I am sitting in bed, the night before we are leaving, I am not really sure how many days we have been here, everything blends into everything else after a while.  How to describe it?  Having been to Orlando, I would say its a very, very adult playground similar to Orlando.  But bigger, much MUCH bigger.  You can not even leave the casino without a struggle.  There are literally no exit signs and the doors are tinted so you can not see the outside, the carpets are too swirly, the lights from the machines too dazzling and they are all literally too huge for you to escape

Inside ever casino there is a shopping mall, but they all sell roughly the same thing, and every casino has roughly the same games, so after a while it feels as if you are endlessly repeating time and space, it's all the same and yet slightly different.  The Excalibur is a castle, complete with staff dressed as Hallmark interpretations of Knights.  The Luxor is Egypt as interpreted by someone that has only seen it from pop out books when they were 6, the rooms going up in decreasing squares into the top of the pyramid, the MGM Grand, once entered can never be left.... Of course it is amazing and wondrous, the fountains at the Bellagio are astounding and beautiful, the volcano on the other hand at the Mirage is just plain weird and makes me laugh non stop for 20 minutes.  Thankfully we didn't see the pirate pornfest that is the show at TI (not even Treasure Island anymore, wouldn't want to appeal too much to families) but we do stand outside the Venetian and gasp at the people that have paid money... REAL money to be in a fake gondolier.  WOW.  The Rialto bridge? WOW. 

We explore, laugh out loud, get hot.  Retire to the pool where they are blasting out loud trashy Euro pop with a DJ by the side of the wave pool... Hmmm, no quiet alone time for me with Rupert Everett and his memories....

There has to be more than loud swirly machines and 'love in an elevator' played loudly day and night?

Part 3 of Vegas to come when I am safely away from here.....

Two days in the mountains two days in the desert. Part One

I  feel like Dorothy as she slept in the poppy field in Oz.  I honestly can't remember how long it has been since we arrived in Vegas (baby) i am sure they pump mind altering substances into the casinos to make to forget all time & reason.... You could spend hours just inside one casino, honestly not knowing whether it is day or night, your every whim catered for, no need to leave for food, sleep, drinks..... There are no signs in the casinos telling you how to get out, and most of then casinos have no wifi, or it is now easily accessible (nothing to detract from the gambling) and for someone like me that is always scarily drawn towards the flashing lights...seriously we have to leave soon or I will be consumed....

To try and put this into some perspective, we left SF reluctantly many days ago and travelled right down the spine so California.  Hours and Hours of nothing apart from recognising the names on the signs, names out of books I have studied for months. Then we hit the mountains.

And we feel like we are in a cowboy film.  Robert Mitchum should be riding his horse over the hills, saying 'howdy ma'am' and tipping his hat as we pass.  The mountains are VAST, there is simply no other word for it.  At times there is TOO MUCH sky, it makes me dizzy.  We arrive at Kernville and relaaaaaxxxxx.  The motel is small, rustic, sweet, with a man playing a banjo on the porch as we arrive (ukulele Daisy will pipe up, but it sounded like a banjo to me)  The town is tiny, very clean, there is the obligatory fat sherif in his car ('morning ma'am')  and the saloon complete with swing doors.  There is the town green, looked after by the Parks and Recreation department (vote Knope) and there are lots of antique shops that seemed filled with the concept of antiques, rather than anything that is genuinely old

It is achingly cute and I obviously start to plan how we can buy the empty shop and turn it into, well golly gee, I sure don't know but surely there is room in this town for l'le old me?

As it turns out, we can't white water raft, which is the reason we have made this detour on our way to Vegas (baby) as there is no water, white or otherwise.  It transpires that sadly the local economy which is entirely based on tourism (no industry, no employment, nowt) is really struggling due to lack of water.  Well, lack of snow really, which means there is nothing to melt into the rivers.  So not only have they lost their  skiing trade over the winter, but all of the ultra cute guesthouses and bars and adventure companies are in danger of going under as people can not canoe down dry rivers.  Sad.  

Still, for us this is not really an issue, the river is still lovely, the town is ultra charming and it is good to just chill out. There are more reasons to come to the area anyway, the Kernville brewery and especially the amazing Mercedes, our waitress, makes us feel glad we made our way through the mountains.  they brew a mean ale (which we try most of the varieties and yes, we pronounce em good) and cook up a damn fine fish taco.  Daisy also decides she needs a break from her tedious parents and releases us to go and indulge our desire for further exploration. I can hardly contain my grin even now as I think about Silvertown in Bodfish.  Silvertown was created in the 60's by a man that wanted to create a genuine old West Town Theme park, so he started to buy up the old properties and moved them all to his land in Bodfish, which at that point was a thriving town by the side of Lake Isabella.  He lovingly partially restored the buildings, adding treasures and stories he fund from the local area and then left them in a state of 'preserved decay'.  The theme park never got beyond the small high street he created.  And then they created a Bypass around the town of Bodfish and it died.  So now there is an old West ghost town, in a ghost town.

 BUT it is so good!!!! The owner opens up for us and Sam and I wander and giggle and play cowboys to our hearts content!  There are covered wagons, honky tonk pianos, bear traps, mining tools, cowboy and ghost stories and ghost cowboy stories, crazy dummies and genuine atmosphere and it is everything I wanted to see.....The West and the search for freedom and gold is a part of history that I am totally fascinated with and Silvertown perfectly captures that pioneering spirit

 I do not not want to leave and we spend ages talking to the rather crazy paranormal obsessed owner who is convinced he lives in the most haunted place in America.  

We are looked after by the wonderful women that run Cheryl's diner, 5 generations all running the towns diner, complete with aching Country & Western on the radio, endless coffee and amazing local customers, including the two brothers that are the size of American fridges, complete with wife beater vests tight over their vast frames, sun glasses on the backs of their shaved heads and tattooed arms as thick as tree trunks ('now you say hi to Mama for us now y'hear') or the silver couple on their matching Harley's complete with fringed luggage and the slightly slower sister with the wonky eye that takes a fancy to Sam and tells us of how she is always ID'd in bars as she looks so young (she is easily in her 50's)

I love it and could happily have stayed longer, more to explore in the area and I could easily have waited for the snow to come, and then melt just so I could white water raft, at some point.

But nope..... We must head on out.  And as we do Sam & I start to feel as if we are in our own private movie, something like The Trueman show where everything is almost a little too perfect.

Part two to come...............

And then they played the Scissor Sisters.

Sam & Daisy have been packed off to Alcatraz and I am as nervous as if I were going on a blind date.  I have arranged to meet Daniel, the artist from We Were Here for coffee this morning, literally just at the end of the road in a beautiful little cafe, surrounded by flowers and trees and with a perfect view of the retro trolley buses as they go down the hill from Castro to the city.  The sun is shining again after some rain and it is both bright and breezy at the same time.  

I spent an hour in the company of a true gentle man, Daniel was charming, so charming and I obviously fell in love.  Talking to him was easy, he is so relaxed and chatted to me about SF, about coming to London in the 70's, life in New York, the changes in SF after Google and art. Lots of art. It was such a pleasure to spend time with him and to have the opportunity to express how much watching the documentary had meant to us as a family.  It was like having a coffee with a lovely friend and I invited him to come and see us when he and his husband come to England

I leave Daniel inspired, uplifted and with mixed emotions as I know we are coming to the end of our SF adventures.  I take timeout just to immerse myself in Castro... I treat myself to a haircut, which turns out to be the best haircut I have ever had.  For $16 Linda, in 10 minutes, totally understood what I wanted... And despite my fear as she picked up the clippers, she managed what most other hairdressers have failed to do!  I tipped her big, to her surprise and joy (she made me take her card, I didn't have  the heart to tell her we lived quite a way away) and then I wander up and down Castro.  Taking it all in, the shops selling bright coloured pants with extra friendly staff, the tiny dogs being carried, men holding hands with their partners, the red lights of the Theatre Castro. I love you.

Sam and Daisy have also had a ball at Alcatraz and their photos look brilliant, they come back with an ease in each others company that is just lovely. They are both really playful and want to tell me all about their trip...prisoners, sharks,the temperature of the water... And they have amazing photos.  E wind up into China town, but we all know we really want to get back, dump our new (zebra print) suitcase and get back out into Castro for our final evening.

We change and head on out, have a welcome cocktail in a bar and  meet e most friendly guy, Steven in the pants shop, who, taking a liking to Daisy tells us all about Long Beach, that we simply have to go to when we are in LA as it is full of 50's & rockabilly stuff that we sure must just go see. He even writes it all down for us and gives us the name of his friend to ask for! Damn they are all so friendly! 

I take Sam & Daisy back the bar I had met Daniel in that morning as it is just super cute and we have a carafe of Margarita (when in Castro...) and order, and then we meet another charming man that invites us to play the pub quiz, initially we politely decline, in our best English accents, but his enthusiasm wins us over and playing as 'Wills & Kate's Love Child'  we have simply the best night! Daisy is charming and animated, we laugh at every question we can't answer (which is most of them) and surprisingly we do not come last.  I think the quiz guy was feeling a little sorry for us personally, and then they played the Scissor Sisters.  It was just the perfect end to our time in Castro. i Love Castro.

Don't dream it. Be it.

Don't dream it, be it.

There are some days that will stay with us forever, days that inspire us, days that seem endless and so short, days that sustain us.  San Francisco has given me one of those days.

I have to admit I wasn't over enamoured with SF on our first day, the hassle and the Disney... Two extremes that just didn't sit right with me, so I had thought maybe it was all going to be like that and we set off in th morning thinking 'well, New York was amazing' BUT BUT BUT... Then the sun was shining with a cooling breeze, the tall mansion like houses, with their huge columns painted bright colours, gold leafing on the frescos,  rainbow flags flying got inside me.  We walked down into Castro and I feel uplifted, I know it all sounds rather trite, but it's true... Castro was everything I thought it would be, beautiful, brash, open, almost like a dream, some where to aspire to in a very real sense.  We walked past the theatre (I feel like howling as we have just missed a showing of JCS, WITH actual TED NEELY....) 

 And it is perfect.  As we walk we explain some of the history of this area to Daisy, just why it is so important and she is so very interested, really wants to know more.  We stop outside what was the camera shop owned by Harvey Milk and inside is now a shop which sells merchandise supporting equality, we all buy gifts for people we love at home and each other, Daisy proudly wearing her love equality dog tag as we leave the shop.  We carry on wandering, just being part of somewhere that is as important to us as other historical sites we have visited across Europe, the history as relevant.  Daisy asks why they are not taught Gay history at school, to which there is no answer and she is insistent we visit the GLBT museum just off Castro, which is informative and fun.

We are emotional. The sun is shining and it all just feels perfect.  We walk to find the Flower Seller, one of the reasons we decided to come to SF on this trip.  The tree lined streets with their beautiful houses just seem so intensely beautiful.  People pass us walking their tiny little dogs, carrying armfuls of flowers smile and say hi. And there he is.  When we came across the documentary  We Were Here last year, Sam and I watched it through tears.  At once terrifyingly sad and truly inspirational, it has stayed with me constantly, as I know from reading on the film makers public forums it has with everyone that has watched it.  I felt so changed by the experience I had wanted to find the people in the film and thank them for sharing with me their most intimate thoughts and memories.  Being politically active  at University in the late 80's early 90's, being a passionate gay rights supporter and the working in the theatre at the time of the AIDS epidemic was horrific and polarising for me, it shaped who I am now.  And now, working with young people AIDS almost has been consumed into normal life, it is not seen as the most scary, terrifying thing that can happen.  Which is both good and bad and we we keen that Daisy knows and understands this part of history.  When we watched it together as a family, we all cried again.

The moment I see Guy, I start to cry, as I am now.  He is just right there, on the street corner, chatting to a young man that we later learn is training to be a doctor in the area.  he turns to us and smiles and then lets out the biggest laugh and we can not help but laugh too!!  Guy is amazing, we tell him why we have come and he is genuinely happy, he hugs us all, laughs his big big laugh.  We talk to him about why his story moved, our whole family so much and he just tells us so many stories! When he hitched around Europe, when visited Endland (Stockport) why he left Baltimore, telling us about the parade he was in recently (wrist, wrist, elbow elbow, just how the English wave) and I am totally in love.  He is so genuinely here, so happy to see us and I love sharing this with my family and we all cry and we all hug.  We are reminded that life goes on, that people are happy and survive and we are inspired.  This moment, the pastel colours of the houses, the little dogs being walked, the smell of Guys flowers and his laugh will be with me in my heart always.

There is more, of course.  Haight Ashbury with Daisy, Buena vista park, the joss sticks, the hippies (still), Amoeba records, the shop with the animal skulls, the steam punk  shops Daisy falls in love with, dinner at the Sausage Factory later, much later. But for me this morning in Castro is it.  My moment.

8 minutes

8 minutes.

I don't sleep very well.  Too many happy hour margaritas possibly, or nerves at being on the move again.  Not sure.  But both Sam and I are awake early.  Which is good, I force everyone up and through the shower.  I am nervous about getting the Subway to the airport, I don't know how long it is going to take, or even whether the route I think will get us there, WILL get us there.  

I think it is safe to say it was simply the most stressful journey I have ever taken, the subway trains do not arrive, they are slow, we have to change, the airport train stops and starts  ARGHHGGHHHHHH.  I tell Sam we are just not going to make our flight to San Francisco and start plan my tears at the check in desk.  We approach the terminal (4, 4!!!) and run as fast as we can.....pushing people it of the way, kicking kids off elevators that kind of thing....I jam the passport in the self check in kiosk, it's stuck, ARGGGGGGGHHHHHHH... And then an angel appears, another kind New Yorker rescues us, tells me to calm down, we have a whole 8 minutes....it will all be ok.  And it is. And we are on the plane going on holiday again. 

This journey seems longer... But we do have the best stewards on the plane, whereas the ones on the flight to NY were soooo cool, the ones on this flight are sooooo friendly! The lead (head, main man- what do you call them?) comes and chats to Sam for ages and is just lovely! 

SF looks and feels different from the moment we step off the plane, the colours are sharper, the air is sharper (and colder....)  the houses we can see from the train are so colourful.  Totally different feel....but our first introduction to the city is not the best.  Our instructions say get off the BART at 16th & Mission.... And this is not where you would advise anyone to get off. Now this is what I imagined New York would be like, rough, drug dealers on the streets, crack addicts, filthy scraggy people and a feeling of really not being safe.  We quickly jump a cab to Castro, which is gorgeous, but we never quite get that feeling out of our minds.... And we see it everywhere.  The homeless and the drugged out, in the tube stations, on the streets, hassling everyone, generally being mad.  It makes me feel on edge in a way I wasn't expecting from here at all.

Our apartment is wonderful, beautiful and at the top of a crazy hill! From here you can see over what seems to be the whole of the city and WOW the hills!!! I have never seen hills like this, virtually vertical and wow...the struggling up them! Hilarious.

We get straight out there, stopping for a brief refuelling... God the boys are hot *sigh* .  This part I was hoping for, gorgeous gay young boys... Being fabulous.... Lots of rainbow flags....ultra ultra ULTRA sigh....

.  And we decide to be tourists....jump on the F, which is the trolley car, all retro 50's styling all the way down to Fishermans Wharf.  Yes. Was Fishermans Wharf designed by Disney?  It has a very Orlando feel to it, completed with the Bubba Gump Shrimp at the end....fun though.... The breeze whips around, the views out to Alcatraz look amazing and the sea lions are smelly and hilarious. Me and Daisy  indulge in extra large ice creams, which a seagull the appropriates from Daisy! All those years of living by the sea, only to have your ice cream stolen in SanFrancisco......

 Tired. Very tired, we manage a short walk around Union square, before retiring to the comforts of the biggest squishiest sofa, the biggest TV known to woman and a glass (or bottle it seems now I check this morning...) of Californian wine..... Ginger the cat looks thrilled to have Daisy return to stroke and make a fuss of her and Sam & I read the guide books to plan our adventures tomorrow.