The Road Less Travelled

...Just to kick off, please do take a look at the misf website (http://www.diffdrum.demon.co.uk/maninsf/). It now has a Guestbook where you can leave comments/thoughts/abuse about the website and my tedious ramblings. And do feel free to pass on the web address to others...

...A few weeks back I did my Jack Keroauc/Hunter S Thompson-style roadtrip (minus the trunk full of narcotics, sadly) to Yosemite, Death Valley, Las Vegas, Santa Barbara and the Pacific Highway. Accompanied by Welsh friends Antony (ex-Brum/Redbrick) and Lisa, we undertook a 1400-mile roundtrip that took in some of the most gobsmacking scenery I've ever seen in my life...

...Yosemite I've dealt with in previous misf reports so suffice to say it still looks great from 9,000ft up. But nothing could prepare us for Death Valley. It looks like some sort of apocalyptic lunar landscape, like some mad genius had just detonated a psychedelic atomic bomb on the surface of the moon. With the temparature way over the 100F mark, everything sort of shimmered and hazed in the sunlight. And it is VAST, taking us the best part of a whole day to drive from one side to the other. It isn't a valley in the style ofthe Grand Canyon, it's actually a mammoth plateau, mostof which is 4,000ft above sea level. There are rolling sand dunes, stark-whitedried-out lake beds, towering rock formations from anage before Man and all manner of colourful textures that just leave you slack-jawed...

...The plateau undulates quite a lot, which means the road throughDeath Valley twists and turns sharply to navigate the gradients, likethe one in The Italian Job. I've included a few pix attached to this email. The psychotropic colours come from some nifty film processing, not from any digital manipulation. And whilst my sanner is a bit grainy, they should still give you a good idea of what I'm going on about...

...Las Vegas was the next stop and that was bizarre in a totally different way. At first you laugh at the sheer bawdiness of it (the best sign we saw outside a motel was: "Highly Recommended" and then in small print "By the owner"). But after a while you're just overcome by the scale and audacity of the structures. Oh look, there's the Eiffel Tower. And there's the Statue of Liberty. And Venice. And a life-size pirate ship. All next to each other. Quitebonkers...

...They have slot machines in the toilets and electronic poker tables at the bar. If you're playing on the tables or slots, they'll serve you free booze to keep you there. I did well on the slots (won about 50USD) but lost it on the blackjack table after getting drunk and then making silly bets. Still, I finished more or less evens which ain't bad...

...Although we stayed on The Strip, the main gambling thoroughfare in Vegas, we ventured downtown on the second night, to what is now Old Vegas. This is the Vegas you see in the movies - that big flashing and waving neon cowboy from "Casino" or any number of James Bond films. They also have a massive covered mall with a huge lightshow which is pretty impressive. I wanna go back again and explore the Elvis wedding chapels, the Slingshot rollercoaster thingy which basically launches you into a geo-stationary orbit, and the indoor skydiving experience - you go into a vertical wind tunnel and sort of "float" on the air being blown up...

...Then it was on to Santa Barbara, which is about twohours north of Los Angeles up the Pacific coast. We skirted the northern edge of LA to get there, traversing for a while on the fabled Route 66. Which was nice...

...Santa Barbara was idyllic, all Spanish/Mexican architecture and breezy ambience. A great place to unwind at the end of the trip. Although our hotel room looked out over the railway line and at about 2am the Longest Train In The World decided to pass by. Think of those long trains from the movies, times them by five and you have an idea of how long the one we saw was. I think it took about half an hour for it to fully pass...

...After that it was back up to SF, going along part of Highway 1 which hugs to Pacific coast. This is possibly the most visually impressive road I've ever driven on. In the early evening you have the fog hugging the tarmac but also the warm evening sun beating down. Every turn of every corner you're catching your breath. Hard to believe but San Francisco is almost an anti-climax after all that...

...And finally, to end with a bit of a smile, check this website: http://www.lermanet.com/reference/BatEarthfaq2.htm. It contains a spoof poster for the new John Travolta sci-fi flick, "Battlefield Earth", which has been slated by the critics and dubbed the worst movie ever made. It's pretty funny...

...That's all for now. Another misf to follow soon, with news of my upcoming five-week tour of the States, commencing in a fortnight's time...

Namaste,

Kieran

He was born with a gift of laughter
and a sense that the world was mad.

Rafael Sabatini