Act 11 :: Scene 2 | USA :: California

I Flew from Coast to Coast – East to West – in a single sitting, and I reckon I saw the Grand Canyon, Salt Lakes, and Rocky Mountains along the way (none of which are visible in the photo below).

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SAN LUIS OBISPO

I was headed for a little town in California called San Luis Obispo (SLO) where I planned to kill some time in the fine company of Lief & Amy McKay, a couple who I hadn’t seen (together) since I MC’d their wedding almost ten years ago.

Lief and Amy have added a couple of kids to their clan - Ian & Maggie - and have become one very cool family; Naturally, I fit right in.

SLO is a beautiful town in a gorgeous setting, being there helped me to understand why Lief hasn't yet returned to Australia despite promising to, and remaining thoroughly Australian. (I’m one to talk – I made the same promise to Lief, at the same time, and also haven’t lived in Australia ever since.)

My presence in the ‘hood provided a near perfect excuse for Lief to temporarily ignore family responsibilities in order to show the visitor a sporting good time.

My presence also provided the motivation to finally set aside the years of talk concerning putting horseshoe pits in the backyard and actually build the thing (which took all of about an hour - I know - I pretty much watched the whole process).

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LOS ANGELES

I took a south bound train to meet up with my brother who was in the City of Angles (like me, for the first time ever) on work related business.

After connecting at the central train station we headed straight for Venice Beach (via a photography exhibition) to watch the freaks getting freaky, and see all the the things we had seen before (on tv's & silver screens) at the world’s most filmed strip of sand.

I’m really hoping I get asked where I was when I heard about Michael Jackson’s death a lot, because Adam & I were in LA when MJ faked his own death (Yep, I am one of many who believe that MJ is alive and well, probably chomping down on cheeseburgers with Elvis somewhere, finally free from the all the legal and financial trouble he was in before becoming ‘a zombie’); We actually drove over to Hollywood that night where we saw many MJ tribute street gatherings. (The best thing about MJ’s death was that it meant that I could totally ignore all the news broadcasts from that moment forth, knowing that they were only going to be airing the latest crazy ideas and developments on the demise of the cultural icon who transcended racial barriers in unique ways; The second best thing was that every sound making device in the city was an MJ hit.)

Rob Reiner is partly responsible for making the greatest movie of all time ‘The Princess Bride’ AND ‘Spinal Tap: A Rockumentry’; He is therefore one of my (minor) heroes.

Frustratingly, you cant find a BH90210 t-shirt anywhere in Beverly Hills (even though the second trashy series - that isn't worthy to bear the name made great by the first series - is still being produced).

Following Adam’s interviews with the movie agents in the Hills, he and I revisitied one of our favourite childhood computer games ‘outrun’ (which we played on the Commodore 64 (Casette Deck)) - in real life - by weaving in and out of traffic on our way up the Californian coast (fueled by American munchies) all the way back to the McKay’s place in SLO.

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(MORE) SLO

Now Lief had twice the excuses he had before to leave the family with Amy so as to entertain the boys – and you all know what that means – a full round of golf on one of the better courses in the area (and a small smattering of other less timely and expensive activities, which one of the kids managed to weasel her way into):

Get three active guys together and you know the highest peak in the local area will be ascended (even if one of them is afraid of heights (because of the teasing of the other two)).

We found a geocache at the peak, which is part of a global game called geocaching wherein people search for boxes hidden in strange and beautiful locations using GPS devices; According to the website I only have 890,253 left to find and tag in order to complete the game.

When we had to be had home – we had to put the shoes to good use. (It would be extremely petty of me, or anyone else for that matter, to broadcast the final score in the all-adult Arkapaw versus McKay shoe-down; after all, only one team had two Australian male team members.)

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Every now and again Adam and I needed to make our own fun in the small country town, which did with little regard for originality.

It was really good to spend some extended time with my little bro in a location that was new to both of us – in many ways it felt a lot like our first days in NZ together (which we both consider to be the best year the lives we have lived thus far).

It was also super to be an honorary member of the coolest family in SLO for days on end – and I sincerely hope that we do not have to wait another ten years before we all get to be together again (mostly because the kids will be teenagers by that stage and far less cute and fun).

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SAN FRANCISCO/JOSE

What you should be seeing now are lots of pictures of me enjoying a night and a morning in San Francisco before flying on to my next location, but instead all I have to show are lowsy pictures of trains, because I left my bible at a station half way between SLO and SF, and then spent all that night and all the next morning sitting on trains in order to get in back. (The lost and found was locked and couldn’t be accessed in the evening – grrrr – which meant I had to make a third journey to San Jose early the next morning in a last ditch effort to get back a irreplaceable belonging).

The whole frustrating incident did teach me how sacrificing for special things imbues them with extra-specialness (I guess all parents learn this lesson in other ways); I have kept all the train tickets I bought to get my Bible back, which I am now using as bookmarks that serve to remind me that, not only is this the bible I read in the holy lands and around the world, but it is the one I gave up seeing SF for and sat on trains for hours on end to redeem; I'll never have another Bible like it.