SF Gangsters

013_4A
Originally uploaded by Karl Whitney.

Finally uploaded the first of 2 last batches of vacation pics on Flickr. Click on image to be re-directed to photos.

Back in Dublin

Got back from San Francisco this morning at about 8.20. No queueing to get past passport control this time, just a wave of the hand from a sleepy dude and a 'Go on man, welcome back'.

Left San Fran yesterday, though it seems like this morning. Bundled all the baggage onto the bus and sat next to an elderly Chinese woman who asked where we were from and gave advice on how to get to the station. Said goodbye to Nathan, then got a train to the airport (talked to again by Americans on the train - where are you from etc.)

Plane from San Fran: okay, but the seats we had were stuck right next to the starboard engine, so it was noisy as hell. Watery pizza in Chicago airport, then onto the Dublin plane.

Got home and slept for hours. More soon.

Yoda Fountain

Yoda Fountain
Originally uploaded by niallkennedy.

We never got to see the Yoda Fountain at Lucasfilm's new HQ in San Fran. Instead, here's a photo of it from another flickr user.

Where the buffalo roam (at UC Berkeley)

Where the buffalo roam (at UC Berkeley)
Originally uploaded by Karl Whitney.

Irishman continues impersonations of paradigmatic Americans: this time, Hunter S. Thompson at University of California, Berkeley.

Aaaaaarrrrrr...

Aaaaaarrrrrr...
Originally uploaded by Karl Whitney.

Piratical goings on in San Francisco.

San Francisco Oh Oh

Got into San Francisco last night, having driven down from South Lake Tahoe. We would have got here earlier were it not for the miles of traffic we encountered south of Sacramento. South Lake Tahoe is a city built on the stateline between Nevada and California. The border slices the main street down the middle, meaning that there are huge casinos on the Nevada side, and wooden shopping malls on the Cali side. From sleaze to apres-ski respectablity in a block. There was also a 'Mark Twain' motel - who knows, maybe the great man has some connection with the place (in the years before it became a playground for rich and pseudo-rich Californians - it's quite surreal to be caught in a traffic jam on a two-lane cliffside road along the edge of a clear blue lake.

Spent Sunday afternoon at the public beach (having baulked at the entrance fee to the more proximate private beach, a place we had spent the previous evening). I closed my eyes and listened to the beach noises - so alien and strange to hear people talking and shouting exclusively in American ('He speaks in your voice, American'). Planes flew over, and quite low too (Homeland security protecting our little patch of heaven? Or just private jets flying vacationing businesspeople in? I couldn't shake the image of compounds, of closed borders, of how everything can appear to be peaceful, but how such an image must, in certain circumstances, be conjured by surveillance and suppression). As you can see, a simple trip to the beach can be fraught with complexity when you haven't had a proper meal that day. Ate well in the evening with booty from Safeway in out new motel room - much better than the non air-conditioned rathole nextdoor, where we had spent the previous night.

Today, wandering around San Francisco with Nathan and Ed, having said goodbye to the trusty Chevy Malibu. I recommend the car: a sturdy, reliable American automobile (takes brown paper bag with huge dollar sign on side from shady spook in a suit and shades).

Also, saw the McSweeney's Pirate Store, which was highly atmospheric and had a barrel of lard there for some reason. In the back of the store was 826 Valencia, a project started by McSweeney's to improve literacy and creative writing, often involving teaching in public schools.

Also, check our photo archive for more pictures from the trip.

South Lake Tahoe Casinos

South Lake Tahoe Casinos
Originally uploaded by Karl Whitney.

They plonk these things down in beautiful countryside, you know. Playgrounds for the fat and dumb (my opinion only).

Eugene Oregon: In the car with Karl, Nathan, Courtney and Ed

Eugene Oregon: In the car with Karl, Nathan, Courtney and Ed
Originally uploaded by Karl Whitney.

The night before we hightailed it out of Eugene, Oregon, I set up the timer on my camera and took this candid shot.

Ed and Karl - Lake Tahoe

e&k lake takoe
Originally uploaded by kenny_stetson.

Nathan, Karl and Ed, Golden Gate

golden gate bridge
Originally uploaded by kenny_stetson.

Redneck humour

As we were leaving the Red Lion in Winnemucca, NV, a pale, tall dude with heavy sunburn walked through the door with his brood and shouted 'Woo-hoo!' at the top of his lungs. A guy who was walking out the door at that point commented, to no one in particular - but overheard by us - 'There's a real redneck for you', then sauntered off into the night.

Boise and all that

We left Boise two days ago, and were sad to go. The weather was hell for a poor pale bastard like myself though - most of the time I sat in the shade or in the car with the Air Conditioning on 'freeze'. On Thursday we helped Monica move from the house she shared with her friend in Nampa, just outside Boise. We followed her car through the incongruous greenery of a rural Idaho, a lush landscape that sits in a desert.

After a drive through the heat blasted landscapes of Idaho, and a jump across the border to Nevada, we sat in a Casino/restaurant on an Indian reservation in McDermitt, NV, where we were stared at like a dog that's just been shown a card trick and I ordered the only vegetarian option on the menu (fries).

Walking into the casino was a culture shock, but nothing compared to arriving at Winnemucca, NV, where we stayed in a decent enough motel. Winnemucca is one street lined with casinos. There are some fast food joints. There is a lot of loudness. It is overlooked by a huge mountain that looks like it's made of sand, and seemed grey as we arrived on Friday evening and burnt orange as we left on the Saturday morning.

After an attempt to find food somewhere on the strip at 11pm (couldn't, but almost tripped over a tiny frog that was crossing the road - another reminder of our desert location) we went to the Red Lion hotel/casino/restaurant directly across the road from our motel, where I was asked to perform an impression of an Irishman for a group of wide-eyed waitresses.

As we hit the road the next morning, after checking out the Wrangler rodeo jeans selection in the local cowboy store, I saw the charred remains of a pick-up truck and trailer still smoking at the side of the interstate. I didn't want to think about what had just happened, but couldn't help considering what the unusual smell in the air was.

After a brief sojourn in Reno (a street of sleazy sweaty hotels and motels as well as casinos encased in concrete bunkers all along 4th Ave), where Ed tried to get some intelligence on where the local firing range was, we ended up driving across the state line into California, then along the north of Lake Tahoe and then back into Nevada in the hunt for cheap motels; which we found in South Lake Tahoe, a town full of bunker casinos and fat bug-eyed fuckers trying to win their weight in cash from the rigged machines. Children in the casinos at 11pm. Walked the floors of the casinos feeling ill at the spectacle. Nothing funny about addiction, I note. Wow, everything I hate about America in one building. The beach here is beautiful, though, but the shadow of the casinos is cast across even that at certain hours of the day.

Boise ID

After the longest drive we ever undertook (mentally more than physically) we arrived in Boise at 8.58pm, according to Monica. How tough was it? I remember trying to convince Ed to go on with the journey as we sat in a Denny's in La Grande. It was like one of those polar exploration scenarios where one of the group begs to be left in the tent to freeze to death. We pushed on, and the heat got hotter and the scenery drier. Desert, everywhere. It's like the moon or mars, or something, this landscape. Incredible, strange.

We also drove along the columbia River gorge, which is spectacular: steep cliffs on each side, a huge river and an interstate that runs alongside the water.

Last night in a bar in the centre of Boise, where it was cooler inside than outside - and this was late at night. Then a trip back to the house in a taxi driven by a ponytailed dude who talked crosswords with Monica while we sat silently in the back seat taking in the bright lights of Boise.

Boise

We arrived in Boise at 9 p.m. last night after a gruelling 8 hour drive. Feeling too exhausted to come up with content at the moment.

Boise, Idaho

Butch has given up posting on this blog.