The end of the American odyssey ... but only for the North!

Day 60 - Tuesday 11 March 2008

Shoot man - I've been on the road for well over 2 months now and I'm still only 1 country down - maybe the USA is bigger than I thought - I better get a move on!

So it’s been a week or two of back to normality. Living life like everyone else. Well. Everyone else who’s not working for a living right now. But it’s been a magic week or two because it’s been a pretty busy one for Rich. He talked about his latest game, Uncharted: Drakes Fortune, at the University of Southern California’s Robert Zemeckis Centre for Digital Arts. A cracking turn out of just under 50 under-grads, post-grads and anyone off the street who’s into their gaming. A top presentation and I acted as presenter-analyst and photographer for the night. The place is unreal. Funded by Bobbie Zemeckis (Back To The Future and Forrest Gump) and covered in original artwork signed by his mates George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, etc. Need I say more!

And if that wasn’t enough afterwards we hooked up with Tracy and Mark from the Centre and checked out an incredible dream-like-state game and the latest cutting edge Virtual Reality technology. And I mean real cutting edge, best in the world, stuff. We, of course, couldn’t wait to get stuck in and here’s a picture of me looking like Doc Emmitt ‘1.21 gigawatts’ Brown! I felt like puking after a short while because it was a driving simulation and you have a 360 degree field of view i.e. you can look behind you and there’s the world. Incredible, once in a lifetime stuff.

We also headed up the J. Paul Getty Museum that sits atop a hill overlooking the whole of Los Angeles. You get a rare view of everywhere and as a friend of Rich’s put it ‘you come here for the setting, eating and atmosphere as much as for the art’. The said friend was Albrecht who is a conservator of art for the Museum and he gave us a behind the scenes tour of the art conservation department. The photography/architecture side of things than the fine art but none-the-less a real privilege. Everything’s unbelievably clean and white with wonderfully warm and welcoming people around. A bit like the watery world where they make the clones in Star Wars Episode 2!

Here’s a picture shortly before we got round to checking out some art of Stan Laurel (left) and Bob Mortimer (right). 2 comedy greats back dropped by Beverly Hills and Bel Air. Not a bad neighbourhood to hang out in that day!

And I was really chuffed to get another National Park in before leaving this beautiful land. My number 5 of this journey was Joshua Tree that lies east of Los Angeles by a few hours and consists of loads of U2 cassettes piled on top of one another. Actually, that’s not strictly true and the Joshua Tree is a member of the Yucca family. I love this shot of Rich making sure he got the J Tree in a top composition for this shot.

This is one of the very few places in the world it grows. Certainly in this quantity. Rich’s mate Robert did a top job of driving us out there in his Wrangler Jeep and diverting off road to find wildflowers all over the desert floor. These few weeks are the only time all year they’re out and rare because of the lack of water and abundance of sand. A crazy spectacle.

At the top of J Tree there’s a spectacular view point where you can see down into Mexico and observe the San Andreas Fault that Superman had to battle in Superman 1 I think. May Christopher Reeve rest in peace. I loved those movies! At least you can kind of see this enormous valley. It’s covered in what you first think is mist. Until you read the information boards and learn that it’s actually smog being blown in from Los Angeles. It adds a whole other perspective to those images of Hollywood stars in Hummers. They’re seriously knackering this part of the world and, admittedly slowly, harming the people who call LA home. Listen to me. Some time in the great outdoors and I’m turning into a hippy. Which I like! I’ve added ‘go properly green’ to my list of things to change in my life!

And so my time here's up. I fly down to Lima in Peru and add another country to my journey. I'm feeling a bit apprehensive 'cos Peru and Bolivia aren't quite as cosy as LA's Japantown where I currently live! But I'll adjust back into traveller mode again quickly I'm sure and am really looking forward to my adventure tour from Lima to La Paz with Intrepid that starts on Friday. I'll be camping high in the Andes in a couple of weeks. Wow!

So it’s only right to make a couple of lists and give you my impression of the USA.

‘When I leave the USA I won’t miss …

a society trying too hard to solve problems by creating plenty more (‘take this drug to cure x and you’ll only have to suffer from y and z instead’)

people wearing their mobile/cell phones on holsters like it’s trendy (it’s not)

a post 9/11 nervousness that results in search after search and no bags after no bags and no water containers after no water containers and … (you get my point)'

‘When I leave the USA I’ll miss …

root beer

Red Vines

top quality service

a ‘can do’ attitude to life

gregarious, outgoing, confident, honest, open, chatty, helpful, fabulous people

basketball (I may play when I get back and LeBron James rocks)

big coffees

having loads of 1 dollar bills in my pocket and making me feel rich when I’m not

playing any more of Rockband and Uncharted (a PS3 is high on my must-have list but not right now ‘cos they’re big and heavy you know)

… my brother (who, as always, has been an absolute star during my stay and is very happy here in LA)'

It’s ridiculous to pick fave countries at any point in this journey. They all are what they are (or will be what they’ll be). I used to idolize California but having traveled coast to coast I don’t feel like that about this state or the country as a whole. But I do love it and probably because it’s very like the UK. Or we’re very like the USA is more accurate. It's really not as big as I imagined and everyone always says (most, like Judith Chalmers, probably haven't done it overland on the bus and train where you get the real perspective). I hope everyone quickly forgets the latest administration in The White House and the USA's citizens vote in sweeping change soon. Maybe then it can be remembered again not for it's foreign policy but for the beauty pf it's land and it's people. I don't think humankind can create the perfect society but this can't be far off.

Take it easy the United States of America and I'll finish off by giving you the answer to the week long poll running on the blog. You voted like you thought I'd bumped into Will Ferrell who was a topical choice if Semi-Pro is out in the UK right now! But my red herring worked and it wasn't Will Ferrell. I did suggest that this was not my usual 'saw Annabel Croft at Wimbledon' line. This is the big league and my best ever celebrity spot. Drum rolllll please ... Al Pacino. Arguably the best actor of my lifetime was on his phone trying to arrange meeting up with a friend 'no, left, on Ocean' immediately next to Jez. Big leather jacket, baggy Tiger Woods early 90s slacks and huge brown shoes. But boy did his face look worn and full of intrigue. Anyone top that? And Brian Jacks when they did their Superstars tour when we were kids doesn't count ...