California Trip Report #4
Mary is still cross-stitching...
Okay, we stayed in a placed called Gilroy, California for the past two nights.
It claims to be the "garlic capital of the world." They were right...it was. Our
whole damn trailer smelt like garlic if the winds were right. What kind of place
would be proud of this distinction? Can't they find something even remotely more
interesting to be proud of like, "the fluorescent fire hydrant capital of the
world?"
Okay, I called the GPS a bitch a couple of days ago... let me explain. We have
named it Bertha (my dad liked the name...perhaps an old high school fling he
didn't want my mom to know about??) This damn GPS told us to go south when I
distinctly knew north was the way to go. Well, the highway I took going north
ended up literally going THROUGH a mountain. Mary once again had severe episodes
of nausea. Apparently, south would have been the way to go. I’ve always been a
great navigator. I take pride in my cartographic skills. A computer will not
replace me. But it did...bitch...
Some people in these trailer parks are quite fascinated with the license plate
on my parents' trailer and truck. My parents are from my birthplace of Winnipeg,
Manitoba. For those of you EASTERNCENTRIC Canadians, Manitoba is a province west
of Ontario. The license plate is very colourful unlike the boring blue and white
Ontario plate. There is a river, golden sheaves of wheat and majestic forests
surrounding the numbers and letters. Anyway, many Americans are not very aware
of anything geographically out of their own state. So imagine seeing a MANITOBA
license plate in the middle of CALIFORNIA. Many of these old-timers walk right
up to our trailer and truck to get a better glimpse of this phenomenon. Usually
they will scrunch up their noses in disgust, shake their head and walk away. At
this point, my father usually runs after them with a map of North America. A
couple hundred beers later, he returns confident he has educated another one of
our southern friends.
After seeing a few more beaches in California, I have come to the conclusion
that the movie cameras ignore the unfortunate reality of California beaches.
There are homeless people everywhere. So next time you see a beach glamorized in
a movie or T.V. show, wonder what they did with all those people. It really
leaves a bad taste in my mouth...
Hispanics are the most prominent race here and rightly so. They were here first.
However, the racism that exists here is truly disgusting. We had a really
friendly encounter with a Hispanic family at a gas station. I was trying to
figure out yet another gas pump and screwed up terribly. It ended up taking over
10 minutes. Mary went over to the pick-up truck waiting behind us and apologized
profusely. There were six kids all crammed in the back seat. The dad said no
problem, went inside the store, bought a bag of pork rinds and threw them in the
backseat. That kept the kids occupied!
My father hates to be put on hold for one reason and one reason only. No, it is
not the waiting time. It is the music. He will grunt loudly when it comes on and
hold the phone a meter away from his ear. Perhaps if they played country music
instead of jazz, he would find more meaning in the profound lyrics...
Okay, the Monterey aquarium is supposed to be one of the best in the world. It
was, but with that prestigious label comes the thousands of TOURISTS. My father
and I wore sandals that day. Bad judgement... We were attacked by hordes of small
feet. Children are not aware of monsters like my father and I (our combined
height is almost 13 feet and our weight 430 pounds) Every fish tank that
beckoned these youngsters created a magnetic pull that drew them past us for a
better view. However, our toes were trampled in the process. By the time we made
it to the front of the glass, noseprints and handprints distorted our view of
life in the sea.
Oh, I forget to mention our tour of the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose.
This house was designed by a crazy lady who wanted to confuse the evil spirits
haunting her. So, she built the house like a maze full of booby traps and false
exits and entrances. Well, it confuses tourists as well so we needed guides.
Folks, when I retire I will become a tour guide. I think you'll agree that I
have a unique viewpoint of the travel world. Our teenage "need a summer job"
tour guides were the most deadpan, monotonous, dull, dreary, uninspiring, "don't
want to be there" guides we have ever had. It didn't help that one of the guides
had holes literally the size of the buttons on Mr. Bean's teddy bear in his ears
and the other rolled her eyes every time someone actually had a question when
she sighed, "Does anyone have any questions before we move on?"
My father loves his new see-through sewage flusher. He will literally stand
there for half and hour until the water becomes "clear." He has even invited
over our fellow campers to witness this marvel of advanced technology. Sorry
about the visual folks but I needed to include one sewage story in all these
trip reports. Heck, the Alaskan trip reports were full of them last year were
they not?
My mother has found a new use for that waste paper basket. It is now officially
holding all my maps and tourbooks that used to fly loosely around the trailer
while we travelled! Initially, she was stuffing them in a ziplock bag along with
her hair curlers...
Americans have the best highway system in the world but I had to cross a freeway
a couple of days ago. Yes, folks, I felt like Frogger on acid. In fact, the
engineers who designed this tragedy were probably on acid...
After our aquarium experience, we drove the "17-mile-drive" around the Monterey
peninsula. This is supposedly the best place to golf in the world. Pebble Beach
(ooooooohhhhhhh) is located here. The mansions surrounding these (oohh) golf
courses were quite impressive. What was really impressive was the $8.75 toll we
had to pay to enjoy looking at these pansy white panted geeks wandering around
in their Ferrari golf carts.
I hate drivers who cut in line! You know the experience... "construction up
ahead...left lane closed...merge right" etc... Well, my saintly father always moves to
the proper lane immediately after the first sign even if it announced this
wasn't going to happen for another 100 miles. So there we sit and enjoy watching
the playful romps of ground squirrels for hours on end while blond bombshells in
Porches fly past us in the still usable other lane.
The agriculture down here is absolutely amazing. Broccoli, lettuce, garlic,
grapes, cabbage, artichokes, strawberries, raspberries, fruit trees... and the
workers in the fields... thousands of them. So next time you buy Californian fruit
instead of Canadian fruit, don't feel too bad. You are still supporting hundreds
of families!
The pro-Israel propaganda here is never-ending. I won't bore all of you with
endless middle-east talk, but Rush Limbaugh (radio talk show host) seems to have
the American psyche under his wing...
So tonight we are just north of Santa Barbara (basically almost a suburb of Los
Angeles). We will be beach hopping tomorrow before heading inland into the
unforgiving desert!
Then comes Vegas! I’ve already researched what the top buffets are there. Online
reviews are a beautiful thing!
