San Diego to Blythe (Day 3 - 31/12/13)

San Diego Old Town.

It's the day for shipping out, and our goal is to get to Northern Arizona for the next stage of our journey. We decided to only do half of this drive and stop at the California-Arizona border so that life isn't too stressful, something that turned out to be a beautiful and wise decision.

The first half of the day we spend at Old Town, the original historic part of San Diego that has morphed into a ye olde touriste trappe. I like the museum-y historical parts of it and the Mexican food, whilst the Duck enjoys the capitalist tourist-trapping parts. We find one of those Zoltar machines where a robot gypsy in a glass case reads your fortune (think the Tom Hanks classic Big), and Little Duck gets ridiculously excited when it tells her she will make friends with someone of red hair. It's very cute and kitschy.

Ye Olde Soft Drinks

A model of the original San Diego settlement.

Eventually, by about 4:30 pm, we get on the road and are heading out of the San Diego city limits. Night falls very suddenly, like a thick blanket over our heads, obscuring the landscape and bringing the long road ahead into sharp relief. For someone used to Western Sydney's slow, gradual boiling of the day away into a 9 pm darkness it's quite a shock. A shooting star cascades across the sky but this is by no means the most memorable part of our drive. 

Jalapeno white chocolate. Delicious.

We pull into an Indian reservation to get what the Americans like to call 'gas' and are bemused to find that the Indian Casino and gas station are one and the same. From the outside the gas station looks like a normal service stop, but on the inside one of the walls is missing and the bright junk food-heavy interior gives way to a darkened hall of poker machines. It's a very strange sight. 

From here we strike out east along the Mexican border. Duck is convinced that every desert bush and roadside stop harbours illegal immigrants crawling their way into the country. I laugh cynically at her imagination but she has the last laugh when a scared Mexican family dashes out onto the road with that hyperventillating caught-in-the-headlights look.

Okay, that didn't really happen.

What does happen is a very eerie and quiet New Year's Eve drive through a darkened desert landscape. Our fear is ignited by the site of floodlight-decorated trikes burning dust alongside us amongst the rocks, like a scene out of Mad Max 2 (the best Mad Max film). Being New Year's Eve, these trikes foreshadow a remote and surreal truck stop filled with drunken partygoers spilling out into the desert, and two flashing police cars chasing vehicles down into the dust alongside a train line. And the Duck's excitement about border breakouts? Even I have to admit that this was somewhat justified when we find ourselves being waved into a pop-up car inspection by Border Patrol. 

The officer asks us both several questions while the Duck rummages through the car boot for our passports. Our Australian accents transform this Border Patrolman into our best friend, although good tidings and pleased demeanour unfortunately do not extend to the use of his toilet (much to our combined disappointment... 'our' being the Duck and myself, not myself and the Border Patrolman).

Aside from this interruption, our night time drive through inner California is fairly silent and devoid of human settlement. We get a pretty good startle from the sight of a donkey running only a metre alongside our car, and my bladder experiences the greatest relief of its maudlin life at a quiet gas stop (every owl hoot and bar chirp makes me very paranoid that an angry local will come screaming out of the night to blow me into kingdom-come with an antiquated shotgun).

Navigating Blythe

After this we reach our destination: the quiet town of Blythe. It's a fairly large town but by no means a city; very spread-out and flat. I'm not all that surprised that it seems fairly deserted as it's smack-bang in the middle of nowhere. 

They have this thing on American roads where intersections have solid white lines across each side like an indication to stop. There are no stop signs but we slow down every time we see one anyway just to be cautious. A car starts hovering behind us so we decide to pull over and let them pass. Said car follows us to the side of the road and flashes their lights, promptly giving birth to the town sheriff!

"I thought you might be either drunk or lost", explains the sheriff.

"We don't know what those whites lines are for", admits the Duck bashfully.

"Oh", he is taken aback, "They're pedestrian crossings. Just drive through them!"

Just drive through them. Sheriff's orders. Watch out pedestrians!

We have a good laugh and move on. Our night finishes with the hotel clerk almost destroying my credit card in her click-clack machine. The VISA card becomes resolutely jammed and will not be removed. The clerk keeps trying to yank it out and signs of stress start to show on the card (and on my face) as it starts to look like it will bend or snap apart.

About five minutes pass in this fashion, and the situation becomes more tense. This card is a lifeline, and if I lose it then it will mean a whole world of trouble. Eventually the Duck shows up after dropping the bags off at the room and I bite my tongue to prevent a major Hulk-out while she helps the clerk unscrew and take the manual credit card press apart in order to free my card without damaging it. 

The poor clerk is so relieved that she upgrades our room.

This acting duo performed an abridged and energetic version of A Christmas Carol.

The Duck and Old Town clerk.

The Mighty Zoltar.

San Diego (Day 2 - 30/12/13)

(In late 2013-early 2014, my wife and I travelled to America and Mexico. It was a very memorable and educational trip that will always hold a special place in our hearts. I kept a journal at the time so I thought I would finally share our travels. Many of the photographs below were taken my wife, herein referred to as Duck) 

The Great American Hotel Room - complete with a Gideon's.

It probably says a lot about me that, while travelling, the main thing I write about is food. It must be an extension of my innate desire that I am moderately obsessed with trying new foods... that the more exotic a food is, or the more regional and endemic its origin, the more I will be excited about experiencing it. It isn't good enough for me to see another culture, I want to taste it as well. This is my apology for the all the food descriptions and photographs that you are about to endure in this blog over the next couple of weeks. 

Today starts with breakfast at the hotel, something that contrasts with a typical Australian breakfast quite acutely. It's all waffles, no fruit, no bacon, and lots of little sausages. Hardly exotic, I know, but this is the lip of the rabbit hole - one that will lead me to eating insects and worms. In San Diego, things are predominantly quite straight-forward. The lunch that comes late in the day at the zoo is significantly more filling than breakfast; a carne asada burrito with guacamole and fresh salsa (basically just a beef burrito). San Diego is California's southernmost major coastal city, so the Mexican influence is everywhere.

Anyways, the zoo. San Diego Zoo is one of the ten biggest and most well-known zoos in the world, with about 700 different species on display. It's the main reason we came to San Diego, because I love zoos.

At the zoo you can get an 'authentic' Aboriginal lute.

And 'authentic' Aboriginal maracas.

We spend 10 hours at the zoo and it still isn't enough time to see everything. If you ever come to San Diego and want to see every animal in the zoo, I would recommend setting aside two whole days. They have a huge range of species and are responsible for many breeding programs that have helped with the conservation of several vulnerable species (one of which is the extremely rare and recently discovered Mang Mountain Pit Viper, a gorgeous green-and-black bejeweled snake).

Overall, I really enjoy the zoo - the enclosures are quite naturalistic and the animals seem well looked-after. My only regret is not being able to see everything, but I have serious doubts that anyone could see everything properly in just one day. Highlights include: the Giant Pandas, a hive of Naked Mole Rats, the Fossa (Madagascar's apex predator - a huge, dog-sized mongoose), capybaras, a sloth, the Polar Region (a high altitude part of the zoo that includes Polar Bears and Reindeer) and a pair of Babirussa (giant Indonesian pig-like animals with four tusks each). In short; a bunch of obscure mammals that I never thought I would get to see in the flesh. 

Our mascot for the day, Ron the Sloth.

Whilst at the zoo we also spoke to a bunch of random strangers, proving once again that Americans are amongst the most friendly and openly chatty people in the world.

The line-up outside the zoo was looooooong.

A sketch artist in the zoo did this. She also drew a picture of the Duck.

She did this too. Pretty rad, huh?

 

We met a lady while watching the flamingos. She told us she had a yearly pass and that she came to the zoo so often that she would just pick one animal and watch that animal for the whole day. This day she was just watching the flamingos.

We watched this Orang-utan fishing for ants with a piece of reed. A lady next to us loudly proclaimed to anyone who would listen, "I can't be sure but... I think... it's an Orang-utan". There was a sign that said as much.

Sleeping polar bear. Nawwwww!

A badass eagle and me.

   

The Panda Bears are so popular that you have to line-up for an hour to see them. Once you get into the exhibit you get moved along pretty quickly too.

'The Boys'.

Sydney to California (Day 1 - 29/12/13)

(In late 2013-early 2014, my wife and I travelled to America and Mexico. It was a very memorable and educational trip that will always hold a special place in our hearts. I kept a journal at the time so I thought I would finally share our travels. Many of the photographs below were taken my wife, herein referred to as Duck)

  

Off to the other side of the world...

29/12/13 - Sydney Airport, Australia

My head feels like someone sat on it for an extended period of time and some inky sea monster keeps sending its tendrils upwards from within my stomach. My nerves vibrate, my ulcers ulcerate. This is me, at the airport - anxious like a kid on vaccination day.

I've never been overseas before but I have learned that telling people that I'm on my honeymoon is a sure-fire way to grease the wheels of life. Our seats get upgraded to economy plus and the bored border security guy perks up considerably to give us tips on travelling and eating in Mexico. "Try everything!" he says, "You got to eat the street food".

My headache collides endlessly with a nervous energy that races back and forth between acute worrying and a strange cheerfulness. I can't stop beaming at the Duck, who is now my wife.

Pretending not to be nervous about flying overseas for the first time. Failing at projecting this.

29/12/13 - LAX, Los Angeles, California to San Diego, California

In between fitful sleeps of nothing and a lot of readjusting, I suddenly travel back through time a whole day and find myself once again living through the 29th of December, albeit in a whole new country.

I look down at an impossibly endless sprawl of cityscape covering the Californian coastline as our plan hums overhead. Nothing has prepared me for the sheer size of Los Angeles; an urbanised environment that makes Sydney look positively Lilliputian. 

The Duck has prepared me for a xenophobic American customs blitz that could possibly end in cavity exploration, but after an hour of waiting patiently in line (and discussing Koalas with the grumpy customs officer) we suddenly find ourselves released from LAX. No bag scans, no body scans, our shoes stay on, and no one so much as raises an eyebrow at us. So much for American border zealots! (I bet those words will come back to bite me...)

My initial impression of Los Angeles is a bit subdued. Stepping out of the airport, it just feels like any airport in Australia. But after nearly an hour of walking around the open streets of L.A. with a whole bunch of baggage, I soon begin to appreciate a few key differences. The roads are massive; having anywhere up to 10 lanes, and the skyline is fairly flat; a few squat sky-rises and rows of sturdy palm streets the only things that interrupt the horizon. An enthusiastic homeless man sings really loudly next to us for a while before cheerfully asking us to buy him some breakfast. 

Los Angeles, U.S.A.

We eventually find a car rental joint that isn't completely booked up and head on out of L.A. for our first destination; San Diego. 

So many signs with mile measurements not in whole numbers. Things like 'Oceanside, 3 and 3 quarter miles'. I know it's their country, but I reckon if you have to use fractions in your road signs that this is a good indication that you should probably reassess the usefulness of the imperial system of measurement. I decide not to suggest this to anyone while I'm here.

The Duck decides to pull over in the ocean-side town of Oceanside so that she can check out the local information centre that sits by the ocean (call it professional curiosity as she works in this industry back in Australia). The staff are great. In fact, Americans in general are great to talk to - friendly, enthusiastic, polite, jocular, and engagingly curious. 

First meal in America - the diner-chain known as Denny's. Food was okay but the 'Strawberry Mango' lemonade I drank had enough sugar in it to cause hereditary diabetes for the next seven generations of my family.

I have noticed that as we get further south and closer to the Mexican border that some of the architecture reflects an increased Latin influence. The houses in sleepy beach-side townships all have white walls and terracotta-tiled roofs. It's nice.

After a few more hours of driving, we get to San Diego. What can I say about this city? It's a bit of a culture shock to suddenly find myself in a whole new city that I've never really expected to visit. We've come here specifically to see the famous San Diego Zoo, but are also thinking of staying a little while longer to explore. 

Shock of the day - a woman opens her car door into our car while we sit in it. She just laughs and bangs it into our car a few times while she squeezes into her driver seat. The Duck tells me not to bother having a go at the woman but I can't believe the gall of it. If I knocked my door into someone else's car I would be mortified, but the fact that she did it repeatedly while laughing to her friend... it boggles my brain. Luckily there's hardly any damage.

Hubcap damage. Just a scratch!

We're pretty exhausted by the time we get to a hotel but I don't want to waste any opportunity. A quick bit of internet research puts me in touch with the Gaslamp Quarter - San Diego's hipster/party zone. Unfortunately, we decide to drive there. I say we, but the Duck does all the driving because she has experience driving in the U.S. from a previous trip. Our GPS chucks a massive wobbly and sends us onto a million busy turnpikes and freeways, including one closed ramp. Duck decides to pull over so we can take stock but the tire clips a gutter and we get a bit of a fright when we inspect it and see the hubcap bent out of shape. Nicole is quite upset, but we soldier on and eventually find the Gaslamp Quarter.

The Gaslamp Quarter. The lights are hard to capture in photographs.

Closer-up.

The Gaslamp Quarter is amazing. A tight grid of streets alternatively named after numbers and letters, the historic buildings are Victorian in origin and there's a mixture of real and faux-gaslight lamps lining the streets. It turns the city into a faerie-steampunk wonderland of sparkling roadscapes and busy bars. The late hour pushes us towards a cheap but brightly-decorated Mexican bar called Funky Garcia's, a lucky punt that fills our bellies with oil-soaked Baja Mexican food. The toilets are greenwashed with strange espanol graff-art and the cheap eats are delicious. 

Freaky Mexican toilet art.

PS. What's with American plumbing? The toilets are filled almost to the brim. I'm almost afraid to sit on them in case I end up waist-deep in toilet water!