Timmy Travels

I got a lift door to door from San Diego to LA by one of the USA Hostel staff who was driving up there which was pretty convenient! The evening I arrived I went on a walking tour from the Hostel which took us up into the Hollywood hills and is apparently where all the celebs go to walk their dogs in the park there. Got chatting to James from NZ and Rae-Anne from Canada during the walk and along with Amos from OZ we went to an all American diner for dinner then went back to the hostel to drink several quality $1 beers called Milwaukee Best also known as Milwaukee Beast.

The hostel is situated right between Holywood Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard which was pretty convenient for the walk of stars etc. To be honest though unless you’ve got a car LA is pretty boring as it takes hours to get anywhere as it’s so spread out. So I didn’t get to see much. A few of us went off to the tar pits one day to see the fossil excavations and existing tar pits. Luckily the company made up for the lack of things to do and we spent many evenings drinking beer and playing cards, all good fun.

I’m kind of pleased to leave LA in the end as esspecially as the next stop is New Zealand.

So I left Mexico City at 5am to catch a flight to Tijuana where I would cross the border back into the USA. Once at the airport I was told the flight would be delayed for 2hrs due to fog as I was flying bonko airlines they didn't have the technology to take off in foggy conditions, turns out it was actually only delayed for 30mins. I managed to get some shut eye on the flight and woke up about 30 mins before landing. Got some great views of the coast of Mexico as we approached Tijuana. As we started to descend we entered what I thought were clouds however I soon realised it wasn't clouds when the pilot started doing strange manoeuvres, I began to get worried. I glued my self to the window looking for signs of the ground when all of a sudden the runway appeared no more than 20 meters below us, it was a arse twitching few minutes as the plane landed and came to a stop.

Crossing the border took about 2hrs as I waited in line with all the other people waiting to be processed by the idiot border guards only to find that I had to go back and wait in another queue to get the visa card, there is little information provided at the border to help you figure this out though! Some of them are most definitely on a power trip.

That evening in San Diego hostel I met up with a guy from OZ who looks just like sideshow bob, he was in the same room as me and he bought a 6 pack which he shared with me. We went to chill in the party room where we got chatting to Ciara and Grainne a couple of Irish lesbians who for a change weren't scary butch girls. Ciara got the night started by downing a beer bong.

The next day I hired a bike for $10 and cycled 9 miles to Mission Beach where I had lunch and chilled out for a while then cycled home. On the way back I stopped at a chocolate place and had the best milkshake ever, it was Mint & Dark Chocolate flavour made with real chocolate blended with mint ice cream, great! That evening I had a great meal of spag bol for $5 cooked by one of the hostel staff. I followed that up with a few beers and then bed as I had to be up at 3am to go to Joshua Tree National Park.

Next day was a long one involving a 4hr drive to Joshua Tree, luckily I managed to catch some Z's in the car on the way there. It was worth the drive though as the scenery was amazing, we hiked 4 miles through the desert to see some Lost Palms which were great. Later on we went bouldering which was pretty cool too. Talking about it doesn't do it justice though, you have to see the place. It was super hot and lots of water is required!

The following day I travelled to LA

So I booked an early morning flight to Mexico which involved an 5:30am pickup by a muppet driver from the airport shuttle service. Even though my confirmation said pickup was 5:50am he insisted that it was a 5:20am pickup and that I was late, he kept showing me his little handheld device that showed the times, I felt a sudden urge to shove the device where the sun don't shine!

Checkin was nice and easy no hassles or sign of a queue, airport security however was a different story. As everyone lined up to go through they went through checking passports and tickets and pulling certain people aside into a new line. I was one of them and I'm pretty sure it was all based on passports and not at all random. At this point I noticed the special machine that looked like it was straight out of Star Trek which we were imminently about to go through. So up steps the doofus operating it and tells everyone they have to empty pockets, remove shoes, belts etc and place them into the containers. He sends in the first guy and says don't worry it's just gonna blow some air at you and explains the procedure. This thing has glass doors on the other side to stop you walking right through it. He steps in and it blasts about 6 shots of air at him and then lights up like a christmas tree and the doors wouldn't open, the doofus presses some buttons to let him out and they then close on him as he exits. Nobody else was sent through it after that so I guess it broke. We were all instead subjected to manual screening.

To say these guys were unorganised would be an understatement, I think the chuckle brothers could have done a better job, and this was at 7am with only a few passengers to deal with. These idiots have specially designed typically American uniforms with little patches on the arms saying 'Team SFO' 'Making Safer Skies'. Oh I felt so safe! As they swabbed almost the entire contents of my bag for what I can only assume to be explosives one of them got real excited. He'd found my handwash gel. He then put it in a little plastic bag and just as I though he was going to confiscate it he handed it back to me along with my rucksack and said it should be put inside a bag like this, err ok I thought but I've cleared security now so what's the point?!

So I left Canada on the bus heading to Seattle for the Festival with Angie and her friend Emma, both Aussies so I was lovingly referred to as 'English' for most of the journey. Emma turned out to be a good laugh and she liked tea almost as much as me. It was a 4hr bus ride with a 1 hr stop at the border so that the US Border guards could flex their egos and tell us all how scanning everyones fingerprints stops global terrorism. Next it'll be retinal scanners and DNA profiling!

Once we arrived at the Hostel tired and hungry we were delighted to hear that there we free leftovers available from dinner. After consuming a large bowl of pasta we went out for a few drinks and then hit the hay ready for the festival the next day.

I didn't have a ticket for the festival so I had to queue up whilst the girls got in via the press entrance (Emma is a Journalist) I was only in the very long queue for a few minutes when I was offered a 3 day ticket by a girl with a spare for sale, I offered her $80 (normal price $90) and she took it, winner so I joined the other queue to get in. The festival was really good, a lot more chilled out than your usual festival.

One of the Artists at Bumbershoot, ever so talented!

One the Tuesday after the festival I spent the morning checking out the famous market and I went the the first ever Starbucks in Pike Place where I tried the Pike Place blend of coffee only available at this Starbucks. The afternoon was spent chilling out in the Hostel where I met Francesca (Frankie) and over our free hostel dinner we planned a visit to the Experience Music Project and driving to San Francisco. The visit to EMP was awesome and well worth it, we spent almost the entire day there. I learnt how to play a rift on the guitar and found out how uncoordinated I am on the drums. It's very inspiring to visit the place and really made me went to learn an instrument. Frankie plays the violin (she's posh) and she could also play piano and a little guitar which totally put me to shame! The rest of the day was spent sorting out our little road trip.

So thursday morning we collected our rather nice hire car which we weren't expecting, it was fully loaded and had leather seats! Frankie bought an iTrip so we could connect our iPods to the stereo which is cool because American radio is crap! As we were short on time we hit the Interstate and headed south covering about 500 miles to a place called Klamath just South of Cresent City in California. We got to the HI Redwood Hostel at 9:52pm, last checkin was 10pm, to find they had 2 beds left, our luck was in. Both starving hungry we raided the free food shelf and whipped up some omelets and reheated leftover couscous, lovely, always tastes better when it's free!

The next day we awoke to find an amazing view of the coast from the hostel, it was pitch black when we arrived so it was a pleasant surprise. It was a great little Hostel and only costs $20 a night. After gathering info on good routes to see Redwoods we set off in search of some breakfast. We took the 101 highway which has scenic routes off of it to see the magnificent redwood trees. We stopped several times to stand in awe of these giants, some of them had trunks so thick that they were bigger than the car!

After a long day driving we hit Santa Rosa which is about an hr outside San Fran and since we had no accommodation booked for San Fran we thought it best to find something here, we came across a delightfully tacky motel called the Pink Flamingo and promptly booked ourselves in. In need of something more substantial than crisps we headed to the bar for food and people watching. In all the time I spent in the wilderness of Canada I never ever saw as much wildlife in one place as this bar, there were cougars everywhere! I spent the evening glued to Frankie's side worried I would be attacked at any moment which was funny because the one time I left to go to the bar I came back to find her being chatted up. I sat down and she immediately turned to me and said he's a bloody wierdo! I gave him the Mancunian stare and he left :-)

So the last leg of the journey was a short jaunt to San Fran back on the 101 hwy taking us over the Golden Gate bridge. Dropped the car off and said our goodbyes, she had girly shopping to do and I had to sort out my flight to Mexico!

Adiós