May 2012
Waking up the next morning it was a rather pleasant
discovery to find the cliff hadn’t collapsed and we hadn’t fallen into the sea
(Barney was visibly relieved about this!) we had to make headway for our only definite
destination of the trip (apart from dropping the RV back in SF): picking up the
last member of our traveling circus - Antonia – from LAX that evening. Which
meant with the minimal distance covered the previous two days we had to get
some serious driving done. Wahid took his usual laid back driving approach out
of the bottom end of the Big Sur, one hand on the wheel like it was too easy,
with Barney taking over for the interstate stretch. We passed some incredibly
diverse landscapes on the way South, from mountains to valleys and flat plains.
It was awesome how you could drive for miles and mile without any sign of
civilisation and then come across a small outpost or road crossing and there
would be an explosion of businesses and houses clustered around it.
 |
| Beautiful Cali scenery |
 |
| Cheeky little chappy! |
 |
| A beach of seals. No, literally! |
 |
| Not-so beautiful Cali scenery |
As we entered the LA area traffic began to build up – it
being LA the words ‘public’ and ‘transport’ hadn’t been put together very well
yet and so everyone drives there. Although I'm not sure I many people passed an
actual driving test, however. Cars simply zipped in and out of lanes without
indication, slammed on brakes for now reason and lanes appeared and disappeared
like something out of Gringots Bank in Harry Potter. The day took a massive
turn for the worst when we pulled off the interstate to head into Santa Monica
and the RV lost power. By lost power I mean completely died. In the left hand
turn lane of a junction. Absolutely bloody typical. Cue mass confusion as we
tried to figure out what had happened, why and what the hell we should do next.
Unfortunately we were unable to move the RV out of the road (surprise
surprise…) and so Michael, Barney and I stood out the back doing a stellar job
of directing traffic around our stricken home. Which really proved how retarded
LA drivers are – so many of them would literally come right up to the back of
the RV before even thinking of slowing and changing lanes, despite our frantic
waving, hazard lights and liberated cone from a nearby construction site
displaying clear signs of caution. After various calls to Cruise America and a
good while later a tow truck arrived on the scene and picked up the stricken
Martha (as we had taken to call her), and took her to the local Walmart parking
lot. Where we were told we would have to stay until Monday (the day being Friday).
Needless to say we were having none of that thank you very much and so managed
to secure a new RV to be picked up in the morning. Pretty straight forward and
relatively easy we were thinking. Oh no. Not by a long way.
 |
| Making the most of the traffic - playing cards |
 |
| The notorious LA traffic |
As we couldn’t all fit in the tow truck, Wahid and Michael
went with the RV and the rest of us called a cab to take us to the Walmart. The
cabbie was a grumpy old man who just grunted at us, but did utter a few words
in our direction: “you guys shouldn’t be in this neighbourhood. It’s bad here”.
And then we pulled up to the Crenshaw Walmart. Oh fucking fantastic. As we went
in to the Walmart to get some bits and bobs for our intended night in the car
park (ie water) I was struck by the place. We were in the ‘hood’. For those of
you reading who have never heard of Crenshaw, let me explain what I later found
out about it. It’s a rather deprived area of LA, and its in the Blood hood.
That’s the Blood’s, as in the Blood’s and Crip’s; the two most violent and notorious
gangs of LA. Not only that but we were on the Crenshaw Boulevard, which marked
the border of the Blood hood. Faaaantastic...
 |
| Living the dream! |
|
|
 |
| Bye Martha!! |
As it was we didn’t actually realise all this till much
later. At the moment of time of arriving at the Walmart we thought “dang this
is a rough area, let’s just lock the doors and hope for the best”. It all
seemed OK to begin with as another two RVs pulled up for the night near to us
(bit of mutual support!), but the girls weren’t happy. And I don’t blame then
in the slightest-Amy had a friend in the LA area who offered to put us up for
the night, but then found out where we wre and refused to come and pick us up.
When that happens you tend to get a little uneasy as to where you are! After
another round of calls to Cruise America and a chat to the armed (yes armed) security
guards (who recommended staying in the RV at all times with curtains drawn and
doors locked and gave us a direct line number to get them on…) it was decided
that because we feared for our safety the RV would be towed again to a secure
lockup and we would get put up in a hotel, all expenses reimbursed. All thanks
to Amy’s damn amazing negotiation skills. Fair enough! Feeling much happier we
got dinner on before the tow truck arrived. Which just so happened to be before
dinner was ready. Typical. Luckily the tow truck driver was a sound guy and he
let us finish cooking before towing the RV, and so with the tow truck leaving
us in its wake we sat down to eat our dinner in the middle of the parking lot.
Looking like complete tramps. Complete foreign tramps. In a Walmart parking lot
in the middle of the hood. Can’t say it gets much more surreal than that!
 |
| Living the Hood life |
 |
| Dinner is served! |
The plan had been to eat dinner and phone for a cab to take
us to the hotel. The first company never turned up, nor the next or the next.
Eventually we cottoned on to the fact that none of the cabs we had ordered we
going to come, confirmed by the answer of one company operator: “We don’t pick
up from there as too many drivers have been mugged at gun point”. Oh shit… So
we were now facing the possibility of being stranded in this parking lot, in
Crenshaw on our own. Faaaantastic. Wallowing in our despair a security guard
came cruising past. On his segway. Yup, a segway complete with flashing blue
light. He stopped for a chat (obviously wondering what the hell we were doing)
and probably would have been there all night had he not been called away to an
armed robbery on the other side of the road. He did however radio back to his
HQ and two other security guards came to where we were who tried to move on the
other RV’s next to us. Which was interesting as one of the RV;s was a fellow
Cruise America adorned one with a bunch of very drunk and stoned Aussies in it.
That one wasn’t going anywhere! The Boss (as he called himself) then turned his
attention to us and proceeded to fill us in on the greatness of the area we
were stuck in: “This is the hood, man. There are gangbangers everywhere!” Just
what we wanted… However, with his help we did manage to get a cab secured to
take us to the hotel, but with only one turning up at a time the girls and
Michael jumped in and Wahid, Jon, Barney and I walked over to the cinema (“ the
safest place here, man, cause we’re there and packing!”) and sat down to wait
for another taxi. Now this was fine, and I personally didn’t feel that
threatened, but cars full of what I would imagine were ‘gangbangers’
would slow down, wind their windows down and
stare at us whilst cruising past. I don’t think being the only white people in
the immediate vicinity really helped either to be honest. Although Jon seemed
to enjoy the attention!
Eventually we got to the hotel nearly 3 hours after the RV
had been taken away, and found out we had moved from the ganglands, straight
into another one. Bloody hell it seemed to never stop! Although apparently this
area was slightly better as it was in the middle of the Blood controlled hood
rather than on the border where we were. Felt so much better after hearing that
one. Not. Anyways, we were in a hotel after all so not too much could have gone
wrong from there and so after a well earned beer and meeting Antonia (who had
had her own dramas getting to the hotel seeing as we were supposed to be
collecting her from LAX!) we all crashed.
The next morning was an exciting one. New RV pick up day!
Except this involved needing a cab again. Fuck knows what it is with LA but it
seemed that getting a cab was as easy as having sex with Sarah Palin’s
daughter. We were waiting ages at the hotel for a cab, and exchanged a fair few
curt exchanges with the receptionist who had booked it (I do feel a bit sorry
for her in hindsight but we were at the end of our tether with cabs by this
point!). However it won out in our favous as a stretch limo rocked up for us.
That’s right. A stretch limo. And this was after explaining to Cruise America
we were poor students who couldn’t afford a hotel room for the night. Woops! As
excited as we were to get a new RV (and boy was she new – only 2000 miles on
her!) we were sad to see Martha go. Actually not really as she was pretty much
designated for the scrap heap… Getting the new RV involved the rather large
task of shifting all the stuff we had (a surprising amount considering the
short time we had been in the RV!) from the old one to the new one. And going
through the checking everything over malarkey. Except this time we weren’t
taking any chances and checked everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. I for one was
not going through anything like the previous night again!
 |
| In the back of the Limo |
 |
| Brand spanking new RV |
I took over driving at this point and battled with a
semi-hellish LA traffic (god knows when it isn’t hellish!) with Jon riding
shotgun and battling with the SatNav, which decided to fuck with us by telling
us to take an exit to the interstate, then chang its mind as we got into the
exit only lanes (which you cant easily get out of again). Stupid thing. Which
meant we went round the same junction 4 times. Yes 4 fucking times as we tried
to work out what the hell the damn SatNav was saying to do. Probably didn’t
help it was a female SatNav voice as well… Luckily the others didn’t seem to
have a clue (until now I guess!) as they were too busy getting drunk in the
back. I also had to have a standoff battle at 60mph with a police cruiser who
thought he was the dog’s bollocks and could merge into my lane despite my right
of way simply because he had police along the side of his car. Wanker.
 |
| Making ourselves unpopular with the locals |
 |
| Directing the RV around tight corners |
We arrived late into Watsonville, CA (yup, me neither) ad
found an RV park with relative ease. Once parked I became a very pissed off
Alex having driven for hours and then having to hook up and sort the RV out on
my own whilst everyone else buggered off to look at the pool (talk about
priorities). Pissed off Alex became even more pissed off when he was told it
was decided we weren’t going to stay there and so again on his own disconnected
everything only to return and be told we were after all. Coupled with being
electrocuted by the power socket trying to work out how the plug went in and
then being told flat out we weren’t going to go to Texas or New Mexico without any sort of discussion
or negotiation, a very pissed off Alex became an incredibly pissed off and
tired Alex.
It was there that I began to realise how much I was going to
struggle on the trip. Whilst I knew the trip was going to be a chilled one, I
simply assumed people would be like me (i.e. logical in my eyes) and get the
shit jobs done first and out the way and then chill out. It seemed however that
in my naivety of this a lot of people were the opposite way round, and the
first few days I had gone and shown I was willing to do the shit jobs and so
some others simply sat back and watched me get on with it. I also realised I
was going to struggle with the amount of time people needed to get ready and
sort their lives out. Whilst I appreciated that with 9 of us in a small space
and therefore turns need to be taken with things, the amount of time it took
people to get sorted to go to the beach for example staggered me. And people
had showers to go to the beach and get in the sea which really astounded me. On
the most basic level it simply increased the time take getting sorted in the
morning and thus meant hours of the day were lost waiting around. I guess this
was to be a learning experience for me as well, as I am very different from the
others in this respect and with all my recent trips being predominately with
the Army (placing emphasis on efficiency and time keeping) I had come to assume
everyone was like that. And I am struggling to adapt to people eating a piece of
toast 5 ins before we had agreed to leave only to then decide they wanted a
shower. I’m hoping I will adapt to the others routines like this and they will
to mine so a happy balance will be reached, and that some of the others realise
they need to contribute to the group effort more than they have been. Because I
really cannot spend the rest of the trip doing almost everything and getting
annoyed about it. This is meant to be a trip of a lifetime. And currently it’s
not feeling that way too much. But still not to be negative about it, there's a long way to go and we have only spent a few days together still so there is time for things to change.
 |
| Yeah, didn't see this sign till the morning. Ooops! |
(map taken from Google Maps)
(additional photos from Amy, Eshe & Kimberly)
No comments:
Post a Comment