This blog will serve as a record of my experiences as an Englishman in California, attempting to bend the wayward colony to my whim, and bring them back under the crown. Starting the week beginning 22/08/2011 (or for Americans- 08/22/2011).
Firstly however, I will include a short review of the movies I saw on the flight-
Fast Five- Imagine Ocean’s Eleven, set in Brazil. There was just one car chase scene to my memory, but it was right at the end and totally worth it. Also there is a massive scene where Vin Diesel and The Rock are having a full on fist fight that reminded me of The Hulk and Abomination fighting in Ed Norton’s version of The Hulk. 7/10
Sucker Punch- I watched it with the sound off, I recommend everyone see it that way. 4/10
Rio- Terrible, I watched it for twenty minutes before I realised there hadn’t been any jokes. Couldn’t finish it. 1/10
Win Win- Small town family drama with Paul Giamatti at his best, if you don’t know who that is then you might not like it. 8/10
The Lincoln Lawyer- Good effort at a legal drama with an excellent twist, if you are into that kind of thing. 7/10
Kung Fu Panda 2- A real surprise, I was expecting it to be a weak sequel but in my opinion it was greater than the first one, great comedy, great character development, best movie of the flight. 9/10
Anyway, I arrived safely in San Francisco (although the baggage handlers had completely messed up my suitcase, no joke) and was picked up by Caitlin. We took a drive back to her apartment, just south of Golden Gate Park.
San Francisco, for those unfamiliar American geography, is a city to the north of the state of California, which is under constant attack by super intelligent apes, Romulans, Magneto, The Hulk, Sean Connery, Jet Lee, Giant Sharks and The Terminator.
San Francisco’s Violent Past
It exists on the tip of a peninsula, surrounded by water, connected to land to the north and east by bridges. At any moment it could slide into the ocean, snap in half from an earthquake, or get punched in the face by a tsunami. I felt an earthquake when I was here last year, I am living on God’s Etch-a-Sketch.
It is a relatively small city, stretching only seven miles wide and seven miles high, but is the second most densely population city in the U.S.A (just after New York) with 805,235 people.
The ‘A’ is approximately where Caitlin lives, and I hope I don’t have to pay Google for these pictures. It was a relaxing and jet-lagged Monday, with the city covered in mist that regularly blankets it from the bay.
Also there was a billboard the size of a house, reminding people not to shake their babies.
Sacramento is the capital of California, home of the Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and also where Caitlin was born and raised. We had amazing Mexican food and stayed at her parents’ home that night. That day I also drove for the first time on the right hand side of the road, in the left seat of the car. I was a little worried at first, but I soon remembered that in fact, I did have some experience driving on the right side of the road.
Oh now I remember! This is how America works.
Wednesday morning Caitlin’s parents (John and Melanie) drove us up through the mountains, through Donner Pass. These mountains were where settlers would travel westwards during the 19th Century in search of the beach and Californian girls. The journey would have been insane because these mountains are ridiculous steep monsters, covered in pine trees, and for half of the year covered in snow, and these people wanted to cross them in a horse and cart. All the green on the map below is mountainous pine forest.
The first recorded instance of cannibalism in U.S history occurred in Donner Pass in 1846, when a group from Illinois became stranded in the snow for months and resorted to eating each other. They were later named the Donner Party and there is now a huge monument to the event in the mountains. The monument is over 25 feet high, because why the heck not, right?
Remember that America is a relatively young country, so they have to have monuments to absolutely anything that happened in order to make it look like they have a lot of history.
On the drive we stopped at Donner Lake (B on the above map), named after the before mentioned cannibals, and sunned ourselves, ate watermelon (which I pretended was human flesh, you know, to engage with some of the heritage), and for some time forgot that it wasn’t the ocean because it was huge and had a beach!
We then continued on to Truckee, a little town in the mountains named after a child’s toy (again, America is a young country). The total drive was just over 100 miles, and Truckee sits at 6000 feet above sea level, my ears popped from the pressure change as we drove up through up the narrow mountain roads. That night we ate out in a great restaurant in Truckee and relaxed in the hot tub in at the hotel.
Thursday we drove from Truckee to Lake Tahoe, which is the massive body of water south east of Truckee on the last map I included. The word Lake doesn’t seem appropriate; it is more like God’s birdbath. Its surface is over 6000 feet above sea level, and is over 1600 feet deep, which is showing off in two different directions. It is 22 miles long and 12 miles wide, which means that it could unfortunately only swallow half of greater Manchester.
The Lake is ridiculously beautiful. Still blue mountain water lined by mountains and pine trees. Also the lake runs right down the middle of the state line between California and Nevada, which means that on the east side of the lake there are casinos (hence the dice on the below map) aka the fun side of the lake. Gambling is illegal in California.
We pulled in at the north end, by King’s Beach and drove all the way down the west side of the lake down to Emerald Bay at the south shore. Find Emerald Bay on the above map (using the red circle I have provided), it is a tiny little bay at the south west corner of the Lake, this will be important for scale.
That huge pool of water walled in by mountains that are effortlessly containing a big steam boat and island (which has a castle on it) is Emerald Bay, with the rest of Lake Tahoe rolling out in the far distance. This thing is big.
After sightseeing we continued to drive around the high mountain roads down to Camp Richardson, and had lunch. The special on the menu was fish & chips, but there were no mushy peas so I let it go. We hit the beach there, then drove back up the east side of the lake and had dinner at Tahoe City. Honestly I am just having the most fun eating here, this whole blog could easily be about food. I was very grateful to John and Melanie for taking me on that drive. We stayed at Truckee again that night.
David Cameron about to eat lunch
Once back in Sacramento we took a walk around the park by Caitlin’s parent’s home and Caitlin tried to get me to do yoga, A Sun Salutation and Downward Dog later I decided it was pretty gay, but I did it because she agreed to buy me donuts afterwards. Afterwards we took the train back to San Francisco.
Saturday and Sunday we relaxed in San Francisco with Caitlin’s old roommate Danielle, eating ice cream and taking a stroll through the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park, which I will provide photos of in the future.
Next week Caitlin and I are going on a road trip to San Diego, stopping off at Monterey on the way (point B on the map below), covering nearly 600 miles of road headed south, and taking in the scenic Highway 101. Will let you know how that goes next week!
