'Hotel' Introspections V

Wood Cabin – Santa Cruz

08/18

MONTEREY/SANTA CRUZ/BEN LOMOND

California is a Country.

Here in this smelly, dank bed with heavy covers, we endure mild nausea. Whilst I contemplate the radio, otherwise known as the Advertising Channel. On the drive from Santa Clarita I listened with great discipline and hope to the Alternative Rock channel. The half hour broke down as such: 15 minutes of adverts, 10 minutes of pointless banter and then one song, which was not remotely alternative rock. Come on America! On this leg two of us were reported missing on Santa Cruz boardwalk and we met a Vietnam vet who showed us his medical cannabis card with great pride. In the next door yard, barely concealed behind some fencing, the most marijuana plants I have ever seen.

A few days earlier at a chilly Monterey (underwhelming) we observed sea lions and otters. The air reeked of fish and the wind did blow. And I just could not get Morrissey’s ‘Every Day is Like Sunday’ out of my head. People make places and as far as I could tell, people in Monterey are a bit dull. I have felt less lonely in a drizzly Cornish town in July. That written, the drive there was awe-inspiring. To think this is but one state and the SPACE almost robs you of yourself. You understand immediately why and how Steinbeck came to write as he did.

From the pioneers, to the gold-rushers, to the itinerant workers, the Hispanics, the (wannabe) Hollywood stars, the cowboys, the bums, the tech monsters, even the tourists; California demands resourcefulness. And mine was tested by the plumbing. Having taken a most successful dump on the Hostel-style crapper, I flushed and it failed. Left for a few minutes a second attempt almost saw the effluence slip over the rim. With spousal momentum I was despatched to the reception where the aged Indian woman who ‘runs’ this tribute to the 1970s, met my report with a knowing grimace and flinch. She then disappeared for a couple of minutes and returned with a cheap, but nonetheless military-grade, plunger. Which did the trick. Later her reaction led me to muse, so if you can feel disgust why can’t you make your $180 p/n cabin a little less Kalifornia? Why do you allow your guests to eat their breakfasts whilst not breathing through their noses? (Maybe that was just me).

Having been rescued from not being lost, just abandoned, in Ben Lomond we went out to celebrate a relative’s naturalisation. We repaired to a local bar where the banjos should have been playing. I was fortunate enough to be allowed entry without a baseball cap/snap-back. We were greeted by a drunken ‘hillbilly’ dancing with a glamorous lady pisshead who just happened to have a parrot on her shoulder. We sat at the bar. After a few minutes another mature female drunk to my left flopped herself into my airspace and in a faux British accent started (I think) to try and blag either money or a drink. The bartenders quickly put paid to that. I should also state for the record that it wasn’t much later than 7pm. On our second beer the dancing hillbilly came over and seemed to be asking us if we would buy some chemicals (ammonia?) from the supermarket because he ‘wann’ed to blow somethin’ up’. Through his bearded guffawing, it appeared he just meant lighting up the road because it would be funny rather than carrying out some California separatist atrocity. But it was none of that which blew me away, it was the fact that the beer was probably 40% cheaper than it had been for the previous week, because it was mass-produced mono-ale. Hope not hops. You get me!?!