Skyekat

One last day of Cali to write up. I had such an amazing time in California, and certain places had the same vibe as Glasgow for me. Hard to explain other than it just clicked more than visiting other places. There were places I’d love to live at some point, rather than just visit once.

I picked up a copy of Coilhouse purely by chance. My mother wanted some magazines to read while waiting in the airport to go home. Loved it. It’s simply an awesome magazine, and another good reason why print isn’t dead at all thankyouverymuch. The whole thing made me yearn to do more things. More weird things. Oddly, I was flipping through the small ads up front, and saw an ad for someone who used to live with a good friend of mine. Which cemented the longing into a need to do things that were my personal brand of odd.

So as I’m slowly (as always) sifting through the pictures I took I’m saving some of them to the side. They’re different in tone from my usual stuff. They’re more manipulated, and I’m more interested in the feeling from them, rather than pretty documentarian pictures that I tend to create more in bulk. It’s a step in the right direction, but is it a big enough one?

Age old dilemma then: how do you take all the things you love, and turn them into the thing that you do?

Early to bed, early to rise. No one should have to get up at 4:30 am. It’s just a nasty time of day. After shuffling to the station in the dark, we boarded the train to Santa Barbara and settled into our seats. As the train started chugging along in the thin light, making our way through large iron overpasses and near deserted streets, Sacramento looked melancholy. The feeling didn’t dissipate as the dawn started to break over marshlands scattered with deserted buildings in various states of decay. The fact I was lapsing in and out of consciousness at this part of the journey probably didn’t help. Soon we got to Oakland (where a private car was put on! Ooh, mysterious) and then the inferstructure of the cities gave way to countryside and farmland. I much preferred watching cows get riled up and run alongside the train.

Lunch was “by reservation only”, and we had not yet figured out that there was a snack bar in the Lounge where we could get food, as well as the dining car, so we made a reservation. Train food is marginally better than plane food, but we were going to be on the thing for 12 hours, so we did have to eat something. It’s communal seating, so we eat across from a very nice, elderly woman who was going home to LA from visiting her grandson in prison. She told us how lovely the scenery is along the coastline, but warned us that it probably would be dark when we got there. But our trip from Santa Barbara to San Diego, which was in the morning, should be spectacular.

We then went back to our seats and settled in for the duration. The train went through mountains and over more farm country. The train came to a huge, looping switchback, which provided sweeping views-of the St. Louis Obispo men’s prison :P Then we climbed up, through dense fog banks. The world was turned grey, and you couldn’t see more than a quarter mile to the side. There didn’t seem to be much to see but low scrub brush. And then we rose above the cloud bank as the sun started its descent, lighting up the tops of the clouds. It was terribly pretty. Now we could see again, and while there were few farm animals around this time, I did spot a lone deer in a pasture near the tracks. Then the clouds dropped away and you could see that over the edge of the cliffs, the ocean lay below. It was a very dramatic shoreline, painted gold by the setting sun. Our friend from lunch came back to see us and comment on how the sun held out just long enough for us to get a glimpse of the sea below.

We arrived safe and sound in Santa Barbara and headed to the hotel. After a bit of confusion on the part of our cabbie, who seemed new to the area, we got settled into the Inn at East Beach, which was a lovely change from the night before. It was just a block away from the ocean, but just far enough away from the main drag that we decided to lay low that night and eat at the restaurant in the hotel across the street. The next day we checked out the bus service to the waterfront. Which cost a quarter! Seriously. And the same shuttle bus would go down State Street (the main street) for the same quarter. Instead we got off and wandered down the pier, taking in the sun while watching people surf. Crazy people and their surfing in January! We decided to take a bus tour to get aquatinted with the city (yes, again).

The tour was great, and Santa Barbara is incredibly scenic. After disembarking, we poked around State Street, having a great meal and exploring shops. We found a fun yarn store and a couple of clothing stores. But as we walked further towards the waterfront, the cool local shops gave way to row of upscale chains. Just as we were getting slightly discouraged, we saw the next couple of blocks were closed down for a farmers’ market. While we didn’t get any goodies this time, it was so nice just to walk through and take a look at everything. California does have good produce!

Our waitress let us know that everything shuts down pretty early in the off-season, so after dinner we caught up on some sleep before hopping on the train again for our trip to San Diego in the morn.

I’ve only been home a countable number of hours, and already I’m in a pattern where time has slipped away, and it’s far later than I thought and I haven’t written or read anything I wanted to today. Can I please go back on vacation? I haven’t even gone back to work yet! And god I miss the food. Such good food, and so much of it was local, in-season, sustainable, humane, organic, or otherwise good for your body & soul. I know I’m privileged to have seen and done the things I have in life, but coming back to reality is no fun at all.

Tonight brings a snow storm (10-12″ yuck) and we’ve already lost power once tonight. Hopefully once will be the only power outage, and that the snow will make me slow down again for a day & I can tell you all more about my trip, and upload some more pictures. I really want to read some of the books I picked up at Little Otsu, which I purposely didn’t read while I was away so I would have little treats for myself upon returning. And I should finish “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. I’ve stalled out about half-way through…

But tonight I will shut the computer, maybe flip through a book and cuddle with my cat, who seems to be less mad at me, and more just incredibly happy that I’m home. Goodnight all.

Knowing we had a long-ish drive to Sacramento ahead of us, we took a bit of a leisurely morning, not hitting the road until close to 11. We weren’t in any rush, so when I was that the GPS was going to lead us through Sonoma and Napa, instead of taking further south but staying on all highways as Google Maps advised us, I decided to go wiht the GPS and take the scenic route. It really was a gorgeous drive. We went through winding hills and lush countryside. For quite a bit of the drive we were flanked by farmlands, generally populated by cows or sheep, rather than the ever-present vineyards of the day before. We did drive past a number of vineyards as well, especially as the elevation rose and we found ourselves in the mountains. Instad of drving below the visable cloudbelt, as we did the day before, we found ourselves smack in the middle of it!

Then it was back on the freeway, and up to Sacramento. It was a fairly uneventful ride the rest of the way. It was less congested and the freeway took less dramatic rises, falls, twists and turns than when we went through San Francisco. It was also Sunday mid-day rather than Friday night, so that could have helped the ride be less harrowing. People whizzing by you on the Golden Gate Bridge can make you feel a bit… closterphobic.

After dropping off the car, we grabbed a cab to head to the hotel. We enter from the marshy brown fields into the city. As we made our way to our hotel, the bustling downtown gives way to residential streets, which confused both us and the driver considerably. We both checked the address twice when we arrived to make sure there hadn’t been a mistake. But there we were. The hotel most definitely catered to the weddings and receptions that seem to be their bread an butter. It’s a good thing we’re fairly abled bodied individuals because we had to lug our stuff up 2 flights of stairs just to get to the door to ring a bell to be let in. Once inside the old victorian, us and our bags went up another bendy flight to our room. Even though we seemed to be the only guests, we were stuck in a room with one bed. Because that’s all they have! It was an interesting place to say the least. Very old fashioned, with lace curtains and plumbing that had to at least been from the 50s. But there was free wi-fi, so I have to give them points for that.

We hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and it was now 2, so we asked if they could recommend a place to eat. They said there was a place just 2 blocks away, but when we got there they had closed & wouldn’t reopen until 5. They said there was a bar further down the street, but it looked like a real dive, so we headed back to the hotel to munch on a few snacks and wait until the restaurant re-opened. Although much as the afternoon put a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, the evening’s meal certainly was a welcome change. I had a scruptuous pizza, and my mother had hand-made pasta in a light sauce. I still don’t think Sacramento’s really my city, but at least dinner made it more berable.

We had one full day in wine country, Sonoma county to be specific. Having combed through our Lonely Planet guide, we had a list of a few vineyards and other points of interest along the way. Most of them were just north of where we were staying on the outskirts of Santa Rosa.

That morning we poked through the literature in the room and saw that Santa Rosa had a farmers market on Saturday. It was 10:30 and the market closed at noon, so we grabbed our gps and guide and hopped in the car. We made it with plenty of time, as the market wasn’t huge in the off season, but there was still plenty of good stuff. We ended up with a loaf of bread & a wedge of yummy goat cheese.

It was a grey day as we drove through the valley. You could see the clouds hanging on the tops of mountains or cutting in swaths through valleys. It was certainly pretty, but you could see how gorgeous it would be with the sun shining down.

Our first stop was Preston Vineyards. We picked because it was an organic vineyard, and the homebaked bread the owners make was highly recommended. As we drove down the half-mile driveway, we noticed a fair bit of the plants seemed fenced in. and there were… big, white rocks? Suddenly we realized there were chickens! The lumps we mistook as rocks were really sheep, and there were 3 pigs as well. On our way into the tasting room we were greeted by some charming kitties. Inside we poked through their books, grabbed a fun tshirt & a bottle of wine & chatted with them about the vineyard animals. The chickens scratch the ground & eat bugs, the lambs mow the lawn, when they bother getting up that is. They had just introduced the pigs that day. They’re hoping they rototill the soil, although there’s a danger that they’ll dig up the roots of the grapes. The roots go fairly deep though, so they’re hoping they’ll do far more good than harm.

After walking around the grounds and communing with the critters we thought we’d get some food. Our guidebook talked about a vineyard where you could enjoy your wine with one of their wood-fired pizzas, but when we got there they looked at us like we were crazy, and the restaurant they recommended in Geyserville was closed. Thankfully there was another, really good place just a few doors down. Then we took another scenic drive back to the hotel. We skipped dinner and cracked open the yummy goodies we picked up along the way.

I may not have blogged each day, but I tried to put up 5 pictures on Flickr for each day of the trip. I’ll post more when I get back, but it seemed like a reasonable goal, and I seem to be hitting it most days. Sometimes I haven’t had internet, so there’s been a bit of a lag, but more or less I’ve been successful. So click here for a slideshow of San Francisco.

San Francisco came and went, then we picked up a car to head south. We spent the night in Monterey, and oh did I love it! A bunch of people recommended Carmel beach. It was just so nice to be able to walk down a beach in January. It was very pretty, right near pebble beach, but man am I glad that we didn’t come during the summer. You can tell how congested it must get when the crowds are there. The high point was Point Lobos though, where we saw sea lions, seals and… OTTERS!!! Love otters, just love them. Short little slideshow of Monterey here. I would love to come back and spend a ton of more time there. The next day was mostly spent in the Monterey Bay Aquarium (slideshow) and then the drive up north.

Oh, my, am I ever glad we decided to take the train to San Diego. I could barely handle driving the freeway from Monterey to Santa Rosa, I really would have died going through LA! I know it was a Friday night, so that could have contributed to it all, but the twists and turns, drops and climbs, all at highway speed made me really nervous. I have driven on the “wrong” side of the road during a hurricane & braved the Road to Hanna, but man do Cali Freeways freak me out. I got better as the week progressed, but San Francisco was daunting.

More to come on the next few days, but I thought it would be good to start getting things down.

Stuck somewhere between utterly tired & what I hope isn’t a second wind, so I thought I’d whip up a post in the iPod.

We decided to take a city tour to orient ourselves. When our first choice of an early tour didn’t pan out, we opted for the 11:45 leaving from the ferry building. I had checked out the ferry building online previously, & saw they had a farmers market on Sat, so we decided to head over around 9 to check it out before the tour started. On our way out of the Muni, we started to see people setting up tents & stalls. It was the beginning of the arts and crafts fair, and we had some luck finding a really unique, handcrafted bear. Then we walked across the street to the farmer’s market proper. Man, if I lived here I’d be at that market every weekend. Such awesome looking (and tasting) food. They had a ton of samples everywhere. We broke down and got a few things that would keep for the trip.

Also, after much discussion by my friends in the uk about getting satsumas in their stockings, I had finally admitted I had never seen one. I thought maybe they were called something different in the US, but couldn’t come up with anything. Well walking through the farmers market, what should I see? You guessed it, satsumas! I don’t know if it’s a matter of climate or if they don’t transport well, but I’ve never seen them in new England. Ferry building: yummy & educational!

Then we picked up the tour & headed off. First a ferry to Sansolito, then we took the Golden Gate Bridge back into town. We took a few pictures there and then it was back on the bus to head to the palace of fine art & then we wound our way through the Presidio to Golden Gate Park. After seeing it, I can’t wait to come back to the Academy of Sciences, the de Young museum, the japenese tea gardens & maybe the conservatory of flowers tomorrow. Onwards we went, stopping in a gorgeous old Victorian & then finished with 2 short walks, down Lombard St then Chinatown.

It was a lot for one day, and I think some of it washed over me by the end, but I can’t wait to go back to the high points over the next few days!

There’s a post I wrote at various states of consciousness at various point along the plane ride from boston to San Francisco that is currently in purgatory on my iPod Touch. There’s internet, but no wifi in the rooms, so the first post may be last, but that’s no matter.

Overall the trip over was good, although an almost 7 hour flight with only beverage service? How cheap can you get? We already payed $40 to check 1 bag each, so no, I was not going to buy a $3 cookie to tide me over. But the ride was smooth and I finished Shivering Sands and got about 200 pages into The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (which is quite good so far).

But it was just so nice to start the descent into SF and see greenery! Yesterday had warmed up to a balmy 20 F (yes it has been in the low teens all this week with wicked winds) and we managed to escape between two winter storms. Not bad ones, mind, but a couple inches of snow each. As we crossed the country & I could see bits of land through the clouds, all I saw was snow, snow, and snow! So seeing plants, an unfrozen bay and temperatures in the high 50’s to low 60’s at the end of the journey made us quite happy.

Upon arrive I was reminded that, as much as I love traveling abroad, it’s nice to not have to clear customs, immigration and then worry that if you’ve forgotten something, that they won’t have it, or you’ll end up buying something you can’t use when you get home. We then got checked in, had a lovely lunch at the hotel restaurant, as our brains aren’t fully functional, and now I’m convinced it’s past dinner time when it’s not even 5pm here. The exhaustion of being up at 4:30 is starting to settle in as well. But we have some idea of what we’d like to do tomorrow, so that’s a good start. Right now I’m in a kind of, stare at things, click at things, stare some more state, but want to stay up to something resembling a normal time so I’m not completely twisted about for the next couple of weeks. We’ll see.

Anyways, I may poke at this thing a bit in the coming weeks, as I have internet for at least the next 6 evenings. Hope everyone had a joyful New Year!

(Pulled off of the iPod, written while on the plane to San Francisco, on very little sleep)

On our way to San Francisco now. Was indesisive about whether or not to bother with really waking ip until just now, when I opted for coffee to try to nudge the brain awake. 9 am est, 6 am in Cali. Today will be long.

Dug the iPod out & Shivering Sands. I’m thinking essays & shorts will be easier for me to wrap my head around at this point, but it’s Warren Ellis, so you never know. I’d read half of it already, so I’ll probably read the other half, then tuck into Girl with the Dragon Tatoo for the duration.

7 hour flight & only beverage service. Lovely. Glad we brought some protein bars on account of my being a vegetarian now. Although chances are I’ll breakdown and eat meat at some point in the next two weeks. San Francisco’s known for good vegi fair though, so maybe not.

Maybe I’ll poke at this over the next two weeks, maybe not. I’ll probably Twitter from time to time, as I’m a hopeless addict. I very much hope I will also be posting photos soon, as I realized I took next to no shots all year! Must fix that this year.

Now it’s 7 am SF time, as I’ve changed my clock over finally. Some clouds gave cleared a bit & I can see land, still covered with snow. Be very glad once we’re past that to. We flew over a large expanse of water just now. looked down and thought we were over the coast, but we can’t still be near the Atlantic. Maybe the great lakes?

Finished Shivering Sands. Had to contain laughter while reading a few bits. Which reminds me I also have 7 episodes of “The Thick of It” on my laptop, but perhaps howling with laughter like a crazy person is best confined to the ground. So, to dig out Girl with the Dragon Tatoo then. Let’s see if the brain’s up to dealing with a plot yet this morning.

(Just saw I wrote a shorter thing on the plane to Egypt last year, titles the same & never posted. But California has wifi, so hopefully this post won’t have the same fate)

So, obviously, I’m doing something wrong. I’ve posted all of 5 times this year, which has led me to question whether or not I should keep this up. Or if I should keep a website at all. I spend so much time on things like Facebook & Twitter that it seems silly or superfluous to keep my own website.

But then, I think about all the things I haven’t talked about… I never even mentioned that I went to Egypt in Jan. And this month alone has been totally awesome! I’ve seen a bunch of good concerts, and read a ton of good books. The other month a friend of mine bought me the best comic ever, Local, by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly. I need to write a review about that like there’s no tomorrow. Then Brian Wood helped a an independent comic retailer from Arizona relaunch his online comic shop (which is totally awesome by the way) and I ended up winning a autographed iPod shuffle, with a kick-ass custom playlist. I mean, how much better can my month get? And I’ve been reading Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis, which is so utterly good I can’t even tell you. Nevermind the five awesome webcomics I’ve started reading in the past six months. I really do want to go back and finish telling all the tales from my trips too. So what if it’s years later? I still had an amazing time and saw great things.

So what am I doing not telling the world about this awesome stuff I love?!

I guess I just didn’t know how to jump back in. Inertia can take hold sometimes. But, damn it all, I have things I want to share! Things I think are awesome and want everyone to know about. So I’m hoping the fresh new look will help motivate me to gather momentum. I’m cleaning house a bit as well, so things will be shuffling around and in flux for a bit, but here’s to a fresh look at things and starting anew!