7 November 2006 - californ-i-a (in america)

well, hello again.

we got the car and it's HUGE! i love it. took a while to get used to an automatic on the wrong side of the road. keep putting my hand in the door pocket to go into reverse!

we left san fran and decided to dice with death for a while. seriously, thought we were gonna die at least 4 times! but i didn't, so hopefully it'll make for a funny story...

we started in sf and headed out to Castro, the gay district. no dicing with death yet, but lots of penises. on posters, in shop windows, on birthday cards, everywhere! found a very gay post card to send to my brother (don't ask) then headed north to napa and wine country.

i drove us over golden gate bridge, which is huge, fast and full of angry, honking traffic. that was the first time i though we might die. after ggb it was quite a nice drive through the sunny californian countryside. was really rather pleased with myself by the time we got to napa.

which is an amazing place. go there. drop whatever you're doing and go there now. it's wonderful. a real small town America place with long suburban streets of those wooden american houses with porches. and wine. napa has lots of very good wine. i know, i drank all of it!

tourist info got us a great room, and by 4pm we were extremely pleased with ourselves, sitting in the sunshine, on our third glass of nice wine, in a very pretty town.

as we were pretty much pissed by 5, i thought the evening would be a bit of a write off. just goes to show how wrong you can be.

after northern had a nap, we wandered into town for a light supper and maybe a beer before bed in a pool bar the girl at tourist info suggested. she will undoubtedly go to heaven!

we ended up chatting to some very nice, but slightly dodgy guys. charlie was carrying a 7 inch knife, and his friend chris had been out of prison 4 days! (opportunity to meet my maker #2). although as it turned out, they were just great guys, and they showed us a wicked time.

well, our quiet beer turned into several progressively less quiet beers, and the conversation turned to how we like to spend our spare time. to cut a long story short, we found ourselves wandering round an unfamiliar town at midnight, with these 5 or 6 guys we'd just met to charlie's house, for [censored, cos my mum is reading, but one guy, brian, was a jazz musician - you work it out]. (#3)

we went back to the bar, billco's, for more beer and chat. felt good to have found the best bar in town, and be hanging out with locals, not just being tourists.

we walked home. oh. my. god. call me paranoid, and i was, but i have never been so scared! we walked down what must be the longest street in america, thinking how many small towns feature in horror films. you know the ones, where dumb asses go strolling around at night and fall foul of a guy with a hook, or a 7 inch knife!

my god it was dark. especially the last few blocks, which had a power cut. and it was silent. apart from one house, which had noises coming from it that sounded worryingly like someone being brutally murdered (#4). i thought ggb was scary, have never been so terrified!

by the time we got home we were clinging to each other. we locked the door, then checked it, twice. because of the power cut it was as dark as the inside of a cow. we stumbled around by the light of torches and zippos, then lay in bed shitting ourselves at noises that sounded distinctly like a psycho, or ex con, creeping into a motel to disembowel unwary travellers.

got through the night with our lives and wallets in tact, and woke up, happy to be alive, to a beautiful sunny day in napa. Brilliant!

the second day was just as good, and much less scary. spent most of the day trying loads of different wine. LOTS of wine. had to have a steak dinner before we could commence the evening's drinking.

and get this, when we got to the bar, the barman said, 'oh, hi you guys, charlie said to tell you he's on his way'! it's like they adopted us as locals! everyone wanted to talk to the english couple, and they were all lovely. really great guy's. and none of them was a murderer at all. they bent over backwards to make sure we had a good time, and we did. don't think that would happen if an american couple turned up in kimberley!

charlie took us to a bar that allows smoking. must be the only one in california! got very inebriated, and woke up this morning feeling like shit, but very happy, and very grateful to charlie and the guys for showing us such a good time.

when we had recovered sufficiently to walk in a straight line, i drove us through the vineyards and up the valley on 'highway' 29 - a single lane, twisting track through forests. incredible! and i must be getting better at driving the huge automatic, after a while, northern stopped clutching the arm rest and opened his eyes.

we stopped in clearlake for lunch. another small town like napa. the only real difference was that, in clearlake, we were the only people not wearing a ten gallon hat and driving a pickup truck.

on to Sacramento, the beautiful, historic state capital. beautiful? my arse! it's dirty, depressing, and spiritually twinned with coventry.historic? old and run down. hotels in the town centre only have single rooms, and rent them by the hour.

we're staying the night in a motel outside Sacramento, near the freeway, on a plastic street full of best westerns, mcdonalds, and neon signs. and leaving for tahoe first thing in the morning!