Posted in August 2012 …

Racing Arizona

So is this the Real America? In my mediated view of America through cinema and literature, I’ve got loads of wildly different ‘Americas’ in my head but over the last thirty years I’ve only experienced urban US. The big East coast and West coast cities, with Chicago and New Orleans and Florida thrown in to … Continue reading →

A Soviet Sub in San Diego

USS Midway The most exciting bit amongst many exciting bits of being in San Diego was climbing into a real Soviet submarine in the Maritime Museum. I took hundreds of photos and luckily for everyone am not going to post them all. It seemed my excitement and awe was a generational thing though. I was … Continue reading →

San Diego-20120822-00199

Yesterday, about to board the now retired. USS Medway, whose 50 years of active service included being the main carrier deployed by NATO as part of the 1991 Gulf War. An ‘awesome’ experience for us to see this true queen of US warships, and to walk round her real working areas. And thanking the Lord … Continue reading →

Honey Boo Boo v. Infomercials

R didn’t do justice yesterday to what we now realise are known as Infomercials: those half hour advertising programmes as gripping as any soap. We have now clocked up hours of infomercials on the tv screen in each hotel we’ve stayed in, and since we’ve not spent hours in the rooms, it must mean the … Continue reading →

Hola La Jolla

La Jolla beach After a final pineapple juice-soaked carb-high session of late night poker, we left Surf City on a high note and headed still farther south to San Diego via La Jolla. We couldn’t miss La Jolla since a close friend spent a couple of expat years there with his family after considerable extensive … Continue reading →

Spreading Ashes

So yesterday we were travelling South, from Huntington Beach to San Diego. Just north of San Diego is the less known enclave called La Jolla. It’s pronounced La Hoya. I’d heard of it because one of my oldest and best friends had spent a 2 year, yes 2 year, ‘sabbatical’ there, 5 years ago. It … Continue reading →

Surf City

We have landed in Huntington Beach. Aka Surf City. Immediately on arrival we abandoned the Chevy with all its air-conditioned comforts for an afternoon scrabbling on miniature towels on the beach. This is a bigger deal than it sounds. We Kempners don’t do beaches very well. Well, we like the idea of them as an … Continue reading →