Between places

I haven't got a picture of the RV yet so here's one of me. You can't really make out my face, which is why I like it.

I got a telling off from a couple of good friends (it was Lisa Clark and Kitty Kat Kate if you want me to be specific) for talking about that article in the New Statesman. I can kind of understand that, the lovely ladies were worried that I'm on vacation (that's American for holiday) and shouldn't be thinking about such things. I shall think no more. Tomorrow we're going to Universal Studios where intellectualism cannot, I am certain, survive for long, rest assured. If there are roller-coasters, I'm not doing them. Well, I might. But let it be clear that I don't want to and I'm only doing it to escape my comfort zone.

Having said that, if the news channels in the UK are anything like the channels here right now, there's no escaping this news item:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4778615.stm

I can only imagine how anyone travelling right now to the US from the UK must be feeling (you can't take an MP3 player on board and there's no mention of whether books are allowed). And I thought I was nervous on my flight - let's hope it's all a government conspiracy to take the heat off Blair (Mr I'm alright Jack, I'm in the Caribbean).

On a lighter note, we picked up the RV today and it was a right humdinger of an experience, heavens to Betsy it was. Amy has nicknamed it 'The Beast' and as soon as I've got some pictures I'll post them to you. We spent most of the day driving. Thank God Amy was navigating because we'd never have got here to the campsite, in Pomona, Los Angeles (close to one of my favourite movie settings, San Dimas, and an extra bonus point to anyone who can name the movie), otherwise. We had a few little stressful interludes, but we're family and life wouldn't be the same if we hadn't, I would imagine.

So I don't have much to tell you today in terms of sight-seeing, because we drove from the hotel to the RV pickup and from there to the campsite, but it has been a great day for people. There is no doubt that the US is a different world. LA is a weird place and not a place I'm entirely sure I'm in love with. It's such a, well, a city, to be frank. They've got trees and stuff in the way of the city here and there, but even the green bits look like they're just passing time until someone finds them a concrete outfit. But everyone is outrageously friendly, ok of course that's a huge generalisation, I will qualify: more people are more noticably friendly. They smile and they talk to you like there's nothing weird about doing that, until after a while, you think maybe there isn't. Damn their infectious enthusiasm.

Our first memorable experience was on the way to collect the RV, we got a taxi and our driver was an Armenian guy who laughed all the time. Needless to say I really liked him. He didn't have a clue how to get to Santa Fe Springs, nor the vaguest idea where it was so we spent the first ten minutes of the 'journey' waiting for him to rummage through an assortment of maps looking for the way (and aren't we all, in one way or another, just Armenian taxi drivers in LA, searching for the way). This caused my father to undergo an experience just short of a nervous breakdown/psychotic episode/major coronary combi, as anyone who knows my father well (Hi mum) will more than understand! To make matters worse, every time Dad tried to help (even at one point getting out his own map as the taxi driver wasn't letting him anywhere near his), the dude shooed him away!

Turned out, when we were on our way that he has just got back from Melbourne, Australia where he and his wife had been staying with his wife's sister. This guy knew way more about English history than any of us did. He gave us a potted history of Victorian life, describing a village outside Melbourne where they re-create a Victorian village in living history. He told us that Melbourne was named after a British PM called William (funnily enough) Melbourne. The whole time he would laugh loudly in the middle of his sentences and interrupt himself every now and then by saying "Yes?" for no apparent reason in the middle of a sentence. He also promounced every syllable of the word 'parliament'. Perfect.

Later, at the campsite, we met a guy who is staying in a tent with his wife here. They've come from Ohio for his nephew's wedding (apparently this dude is worth $5 million, he could at least have subbed them for hotel), but he was really missing his baby grand-daughter, Bailey (there's no getting away from that name for long). He was in the US army for 18 years and they never sent him out of the states once. He said that the best place he ever got sent was to Death Valley, where they were sent ON FOOT on exercise once. He told us there had been rain in January that year, and when they got there in April, there were patches of ground covered in these tiny flowers, no more than an inch or so high, all growing together "like a carpet". He said that that was the place he had learnt the most in the army, and that he made as many of the other troops as he could walk around them, because they were so fragile and they had spent their whole lives so far just trying to survive: "You kill something that fragile," he told us, "And it's gone forever."
Whether it's me, my own family or the many people we meet on this trip, I think in many ways it will be people that I find the most interesting. I love these chance conversations the best, with people that you never would have had that chat with if you had been there five minutes later, or if you hadn't made eye contact, or if you hadn't have said 'Hey'. To me, they're probably the real adventure. But I haven't tried the rides at Universal yet, so I'll let you know.