American Riviera

We've added Santa Barbara to our list of 'must return to' places.

Actually, most of the places we've been visiting are 'should return' in any case.

So its time to start making the new lists for the next visit.

As we travelled back towards Los Angeles, we passed Malibu where the the Beckhams and the Ramsays are staying and even spotted a couple of people setting up a video camera outside the Beckhams' place (which they have rented from Steve Spielberg).

I can understand Malibu as a location for surf and access to L.A. but somehow preferred the guaranteed sunshine and variety of amenities in Santa Barbara.

early morning, pacific time

Early Sunday morning and I'm pretty much alone on the beach. An occasional jogger passes in the opposite direction but the main company is the wide variety of seabirds.

Pelicans glide over the surface of the waves and small groups of some kind of dipper bird run back and forth along the shoreline.

I idly wonder if they have learned to predict when the big waves appear (is it every seven or ten or something?) Then I notice the gulls scrambling and flying back from the water's edge.

With all their time by the sea they are as clueless as me about when a big wave will appear on this incoming tide.

I also know that in a couple of hours this scene will be broken as more people awaken and the 300 day year sun appears to melt the mist from this scene.

Meantime I will get my feet wet in the Pacific.

at one with now

A pleasant day wandering the sunny but surprisingly quiet beaches, dipping into the Pacific and generally chilling.

It's easy to understand why Brother One Feather has made this a home with the Temple of One Love as his place for living in the Now.

Love and Peace.

El Camino Real

We arrived at the Fiesta this morning just as the main parade started and saw all manner of costume as we watched horse riders move through the town to the great delight of the large crowds.

Then, into the Santa Ynez Valley to wine country, to a small and deceptively sleepy ex-cowboy looking town called Los Olivos. The town's timber fronted properties have been used in a wide range of movies.

Stretched limos and open topped Hummers give the game away that this is now a well-heeled centre for the local wine industry and there are dozens of wine-tasting locations in and around the town.

Naturally we imbibed, as well as picking up some strawberries (the other famous Santa Barbara crop). Then onwards to Denmark, or at least an American version of it in Solvang, a small town founded in the early 1900s as a base for a Danish-style and somewhat free-format folk school.

Nowadays theres an obvious Danish influence with flags everywhere, busts of Hans Christian Anderson and a statue of the little mermaid.

The architecture is also quite Scandinavian, although the Belgian coffee shop, the Heidelberg Inn and the town clock playing "Frère Jacques" add a more general 'European' flavour to the proceedings.

When in Santa Barbara we'd also visited the Mission and we soon found ourselves back on one of the famous Mission roads, the El Camino Real, with its distinctive bell markers along the route as we headed back to the coast in time for a fine sunset.

Fiesta

It turns out that we'd arrived in Santa Barbara just as their annual Mexican fiesta was about to start.

The first sign for us was a young girl getting on a bus with a box containing around 18 brightly coloured confetti eggs. Then we heard that a few roads would be closed and finally as we arrived in the centre we could see the Mercado de la Guerra in full swing, with a rock band on stage and various Mariachi and Norteño groups grooving in the side streets.

Sizzling and popping from the adjacent stands were all manner of foods and colourful clothes, and this was still a day before the main events really got under way.

sittin in the hills

Yes, we realised it was time to check out from L.A. but not until we'd done one more thing. We'd already spent time on Hollywood Boulevard, seen the sign, wandered along Sunset Strip. Been up to the big houses in Beverley Hills. Seen a movie in Graumann's Chinese Theatre. Been backstage at the Kodak. Visited the fancy schmancy restaurants frequented by the stars, seen Famous People Driving Around In Fancy Cars. But there was one more big attraction of the area that we hadn't yet done.

I know you'll guess...

Yes - Sittin' in the Hills - with Naomi.

And for that story there's

'More to come...'

Hollywood - Marina del Rey - Beverley Hills

We're still in Hollywood but have also been out to Marina del Rey to meet a friend.

The road systems around Los Angeles are more demanding that most of the other places we've visited and we saw some quite spectacular manoeuvres by other drivers changing lanes. I was driving at my most defensive.

Michelle Shocked sings 'I've driven five hundred miles today and never even left L.A" - I know the feeling.

Then an evening to catch up on years of news with Michael who now lives in a ritzy apartment in the Marina district. His place has all mod cons with valet parking, onsite gyms and pools and was quite a lot like living permanently in a luxury resort. We spent several hours chattering about our various adventures before taking our leave for the return to the centre.

Whilst we were away the construction workers seemed to have made central L.A. a total exclusion zone with various strategic roads and ramps closed to traffic creating something of a puzzle to get back. We made it in and only seemed to lose about 10 minutes, but it was more with luck than judgement. It was also another late finish, maybe 2am compared to yesterday's 1am.

Today was spent around more of the central areas, although we also hopped briefly over to Beverley Hills and in the evening visited the excellent and vibrant Spago restaurant where we also met the head chef Wolfgang Puck, who visited our table. The food, ambiance and service of this restaurant were all first rate.

Hooray for Hollywood

We can see the Hollywood sign from the apartment. I didn't realise this yesterday night when we arrived, but noticed it as soon as it was daylight today.

The same with the stars on the pavement which go right past our building. There's Judy Garland and James Dean within a few paces. However, the main Hollywood Boulevard still has a wide variety of shops, ranging from tattoo parlours, places to by hubble bubbles and strange herbs all the way through to quite upmarket stores.

The tourist centre today is a few blocks west from here, by the Kodak Theatre and Grauman's Chinese Theater. We took a look around both. The Kodak is where the Oscar ceremony is held each year now although the off-duty outside resembles a shopping mall. For the Oscars around a quarter of a mile of the mains road is laid with red carpet for the fil stars to walk along. The rest of the year its a high pressure tourist location which somehow reminds me of an unfolded and very sunny Leicester Square in London.

Adjacent to the Kodak is the 80 year old Grauman's theatre, which looks very Chinese because Grauman was a fan of the Chinese. Inside, it s a very opulent and well detailed building, which can somehow teach the designers of the Kodak about adding some spirit and soul to a building.

In fairness, the inside of the Kodak theatre has been done well, but there are large areas which look as if the paint has been applied rather thinly.

But we are standing quite literally in the footsteps of the great and good outside Grauman's. All of Hollywood royalty is present with their feet and hands marked out in concrete slabs. I've seen one of the ceremonies in the past (Nick Cage) and he had Jim Carrey, Jay Leno and others show up for the session. I'm told they limit the ceremonies to 2-3 a year which stretch back to Marilyn Monroe (much handling of these impressions) via John Wayne (whose impression includes a fist) and up to the Harry Potter trio who share one large square together.

Now its time to head to a marina to catch up with another friend.

Hollywood and Vine

We decided that we'd taken enough money from the casinos in Vegas and it was time to move on.

The journey to L.A. took slightly longer than anticipated because of an inexplicable 120 mile long traffic jam on the main route.

We chickened out and diverted across the Mojave Desert, which was a round-about route but did give us a chance to get reacquainted with Joshua trees.

The clock on the wall in our Hollywood and Vine apartment here gives the game away though.

We didn't arrive until about 1 o'clock in the morning. I've decided to leave my stuff in the backpack until the morning.

Instead maybe I'll spin some vinyl on the thoughtfully provided turntable and selection of albums or catch up with Mila Kunis in Los Angeles Confidential.

Later I'm sure we'll be wandering across to Hollywood Boulevard and hopefully spotting a few movie stars...

Oh, silly me, I must be tired after all....

We are on Hollywood Boulevard...That would account for the golden stars on the sidewalk outside the apartment.

you gotta know when to hold 'em, and know when to fold 'em

As its Vegas, we can't tell too many tales of what goes on. However, my gambling was pretty good.

I decided to splurge a full $10 on the slots and started out at the Rio, whilst collecting some tickets for a show.

I worked my way through a variety of low spend machines, winning a dollar or two as I went along. When I found a winning machine, a man popped up from behind it and started singing on a small stage. Only one number, but I wondered if it had been done to distract.

I continued and then a few minutes later a dancing girl wearing not very much popped up on the same stage whilst another started to offer me drinks. I was up to at least $16 by this point, and the machine was making all manner of excited sounds.

In the end, I had to leave, but cashed in my winnings which finally peaked at $18 - thats a full $8 profit for less that half an hour of button pressing.

I returned to the Palazzo and decided to try a similar machine to see if my luck continued.

But No. In less than five minutes my winnings were wiped out and I was down to $2 from my original $10.

I decided to save the $2 for a later gamble.

This played out when we were on our way back from a restaurant. I put the $2 into a machine and pressed the button for what amounted to 3 or 4 goes. On the third go, some lights flashed and the machine went into deep thought for what seemed like a long time.

I'd won again. This time $135. I decide to press the 'print coupon' button and triumphantly cashed the money.

At this point I could say I had gambled successfully in Vegas.

But don't tell anyone.

in the skyline of signs

From my various dalliances with Vegas, I'd decided that the Venetian was my hotel of preference.

This time we are actually sleeping way up in the sky at the adjoining sister hotel which is called the Palazzo. It's a huge room in what is really the same vast complex and still has the Venetian canal system that runs through the shopping mall. The room is high enough to make eye-contact with the many passing helicopters and our room looks down on many of the hotels including the overly golden Trump towers.

The predecessor of the Venetian for the indoor faux Italian street scenes was the Bellagio, which is the one often shown in 'heist' movies although staying in the simulated daylight or evening of the Venetian works surprisingly well. Look carefully in the picture and you can see the sprinkler system in the sky.


Many people can be a bit snooty about Las Vegas, but as a short break of 2-3 days it is something of a global and slightly bonkers 'one-off'. Suspend certain critical functions when entering this topless pizza other-world.

As we arrived yesterday through the ten story neon signs I was reminded that night-time Las Vegas is where everyone drives with an attitude as if they have just consumed about a dozen Red Bull caffeine drinks, don't yield at crossings and will jump lights and jostle for a one car advantage.

I'm valet parked until we crack the system in this desert town that hides the hours.

Scarlet's Walk as a soundtrack

There's even more mental editing to keep this blog running whilst on vacation and trying to stay to a ten minute per post rule. It'll be impressions more than anything.

I'm travelling fairly backpack light, so the usual paraphernalia of cameras and suchlike technology is mainly back in the UK. Like another desert wandering blogger, iPhone will sometimes suffice.

The trip is also a useful stimulus for the Circle (book three of The Triangle). I've got some great ideas. But they must wait. It's a full time job 'doing it' at the moment, let alone writing about it.

Then there's water. Despite the desert pictures, we have seen some of that too. Stepped in it, crossed it, swam in it. Oh yes.

And last night we drifted out of one kind of desert into another. The type that suddenly switches on as if a giant has carelessly tossed golden jewels across the sand. Too many to count, each one glittering with someone's hopes but in an environment designed to extract more than it places back.

Yes. We are in Vegas. As Tori might say:

and the Jacaranda tree
is telling me
It's not over yet,
just by the way She bends
"if you come breezin' through"
you said "I'll know that it's
you by the taste on my lips,
Bet on the desert's kiss"

See you on the 44th floor.