 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Some time this year Viktor decided that since it was time to go to a conference in San Diego, that I should come along and cruise around the states on business. Well, monkey business it is.
The conference is the 14th annual hypnosis conference, which is particularly relevant since I first started hypnotising people in 1977 - but that's another story.
We started out in New Jersey. From there you just jump on the train from New Providence. Just an hour or so and you end up in New York City. If you don't know what that looks like then have a look from the top of the Empire State Building.
Of course, no visit to New York would be complete without seeing the Statue of Liberty. Here is Viktor with the statue.
Well, of course you can't see New York without seeing some of New York's finest. That was outside the supreme court. But of course I found that Central Park offered a much better view.
You can also find yourself in Chinatown. without even going to the orient.
Well, when you mention NY, you mean culture so we went to the Guggenheim Museum. Trouble was it was full of funnily shaped lumps of rock - heck the market stalls had the same stuff at much better prices!
Viktor decided that he had to take a picture of Park Avenue, but I was starting to get jack of the big apple. It was time to do something.
As soon as we got on the train back to New Jersey, I found it was infested with Geeks! That's it I thought so I left Bruce working, and told Viktor to get out of here - it was time for a new plan!
So, onto the plane it was. Go west young man was the call. We studied the map carefully. A 3,000 mile trek seemed like the plan! San Francisco first stop.
Ahhh, California - the promised land, we knew it was since one of the first things I saw was a Viper on the freeway. This was cool. And in the harbour a decadent cruise ship. This was bliss - just look at the skyline. It's even better when the sun is setting.
No visit is complete without seeing a few tourist spots. We knew we'd found one when we saw the evidence. It was, of course the perfect spot to see the Golden Gate Bridge. This city is good, I mean just check out the transport some people use.
Well, we settled at a military base which had the coolest hostel. Look at the view from the cafe.
Anyway, it was time to play golf! We sources ourselves a team and headed for the most spectacular course in San Francisco.
After an exhausting 18 holes, we found some nutters doing pushbike tricks. That was sort of cool, but not nearly as cool as the Lamborghini 4-wheel drive.
Wow, well we kept looking and found another Chinatown. This place has everything!
Since the plan we hatched forced us to leave this Nirvana, we headed south to Silicon Valley where we found some familiar faces. We couldn't stop to chat for long since we were in search of beach, and despite its name, Silicon Valley was a failure. So south it was where we hit Pismo beach and found some surfers. How cool - and it even had a cool pier complete with fire hydrants!
Well, when you're in beach zone, you have to have a keen eye for sharks. After seeing that scary creature, we found the ideal surfer transport device.
Well, the shark scared Viktor so much, we decided we'd better get back to golf. We found this ultra-swish country club where they outfitted us like champions. That was so decadent that we decided to go somewhere holy to confess our sins. We found that Santa Barbara Mission provided the right sort of place. It even had a nice garden.
After that temporary attack of morality, Viktor instantly fell back into the 'Im a professional photographer' mode of operation. It was, of course a complete failure after he forgot to take the lens cap off, so we resorted to taking pictures of birds on the pier.
We gave up on the piccie taking, and found solace in a really nice restaurant. We immediately ordered the swordfish stuffed with crab meat.
After that great pig-out it was time for a pilgrimage to the Buckminster Fuller Institute. There you can find books, pictures, patents and all sorts of Bucky paraphernalia.
Well, it was time to look for alternative transport. That didn't quite fit the bill, so we went whale watching instead. These things are blue whales - the biggest animals on earth. They look cool when they flip their tails in the air. That means they're about to dive. Here is a movie (8.9 Mb MPEG). Check out those spouts!
Well, enough of nature, it was time to head for the desert in search of the American Dream. On the way we saw freeway madness, windmill madness and everything. At least we finally found the desert.
Well, we were nowhere near Barstow, but things get a little hazy here, I guess we'll have to resort to the super-sensitive tape recorder for the rest of the story...
Shot with MPEGcam
(tm).
