America Diary - Day 10: Sunday 13th April - Lakes, Canyons and Sunsets on the River

I had the best sleep of the whole trip last night and woke up to enjoy some complimentary bottled water, which has me questioning the integrity of the hotel star system when compared to the meagre (and expensive) offerings in Vegas. Compounding the experience was a complimentary breakfast including bagels, fruit and what seemed to be doughnut bites. Yum. Then, with a busy day ahead of us, we leapt straight into action. First, we drove over to Lake Powell for a kayaking trip. The sun was high but its effect was eased by regular cool breezes. When we caught sight of the deep blue in the middle of this red desert, it seemed extraordinary that water could be found somewhere as arid as this, but of course it shouldn’t be – the reservoir is an artificial construction, created by the flooding of Glen Canyon with a massive dam. We paddled against a strong current, passing families who were fishing on the shoreline, and veered off into Lake Powell itself, which resembles a river more than a lake. Our guide Beth informed us that the water was at a historic low, only 30% or so full, though there were still about 370ft of water below us. The canyon walls, the once-submerged section bleached white, topped with streaky orange and red, rose high on either side of us. I was a little unnerved by the strange matter that floated on the surface – these bizarre, organic-looking globules that uncannily resembled rotting flesh – some of which kept slopping into the kayak when it rocked from side to side. To my relief, our guide told me it was algae, which once covered the water like a vivid green carpet, only to eventually sink to the bottom and die as the seasons changed. Still, I scraped the globs of algae out of the boat and into the water, feeling a natural disinclination to have anything that looks like dead meat make contact with my body.

We paddled some way further down the canyon/lake before our guides became conscious of the time and decided to turn the group back around. Throughout the boat trip, we are regularly passed by speedboats and jetskis, though only slower vehicles are allowed into the reservoir itself. There is a house on a nearby hill, which our guide told us is a very expensive mansion owned by someone very rich, only it sits empty most of the year. She explained how Lake Powell is a bit of a hotspot for celebrity tourism, and there is a resort nearby which costs around $8,000 a night to stay, with clients such as Beyoncé, the Biebers, the Kardashians, etc. She even said that P Diddy had booked a tour with their company, though I’m not sure that’s an endorsement I’d be broadcasting far and wide. It struck me that a dwindling reservoir (which, according to our guide, is at risk of becoming defunct due to overallocation) that provides water for countless settlements in the southwest is also a playground for the super-rich. There’s a strange contradiction at play there.

After our boat tour we waited in the Arizona sun for Dad to pick us up before heading to McDonalds for a quick lunch. We had a brief rest at the hotel before heading to our next activity: a tour of the lower reaches of Antelope Canyon in the Navajo Nation. The large assembly of people at the visitor centre was divided into groups – our tour guide was a lanky young guy called Nolan, who wore a blue camo jacket as well as a balaclava and sunglasses under a wide-brimmed sunhat. As Dad said, Nolan was so laid-back he was almost horizontal. He had a languid disaffected air and spoke in a very slow drawl, which may have been because of a lack of interest or just because it was his fifth tour of the day. He wasn’t necessarily an overflowing font of knowledge, but he gave us some perfunctory info at each key spot in the canyon and did offer to take family photos for us, which turned out to be very well-composed (even editing the images and applying filters in mere instants). He must do this a lot. To his credit, there was no need to be a chatterbox, as the canyon spoke for itself. I had seen pictures of the smooth, undulating walls of Antelope Canyon as a Windows screensaver, but didn’t realise it was this place until I arrived. As the sun lowered in the sky, it scattered light through the narrow gap high above, making the stone seem intermittently orange, gold and red. The actual shape of it is so far removed from the jagged crags of what I knew as a ‘canyon’ that it felt more like we were moving through something organic, like the winding digestive system of a fossilised leviathan. There were a lot of people in there at one time, and everyone kept stopping to take photos (especially the French mother in front of us who couldn’t move on without painstakingly framing the perfect shot), so our movement was slow, but this was all the better for taking in the hypnotic natural formations around us.

Once we had climbed the steep steps out of the canyon, Nolan disappeared (Brother mentioned that he saw him lying flat on his back on a picnic bench) and we went back to the car. Before we went back to the hotel, the parents wanted to see Horseshoe Bend, that famously photogenic segment of the Colorado River, which curves around a large striated rocky outcrop. As we walked down the path from the car park, we noticed the crowds gathering at the viewpoint. Clamouring isn’t the right word, as everyone was very respectful of each other’s space, but there was such a crowd that I wasn’t sure we’d even get a good view ourselves. Luckily, we found a spot a little further along the ridge, and we sat on a rock overlooking the ravine. Sister wanted a family picture of our silhouettes watching the sunset, which we were able to get after much fiddling with timer settings and camera setups. Parents were a little disappointed that the sun was setting opposite us, which muted the colours of the ravine instead of painting it all in brilliant clarity, but as the sun dropped below the horizon and the sky faded from evening blue to oil-on-water multicolour, they joined the assembled crowds in snapping some good shots of the twilit valley.

Then back to the hotel in Page, which has some of the comfiest beds of the whole stay, as well as some hibiscus-infused water in the lobby, which I like.

America Diary - Day 9: Saturday 12th April - Bryce

I may have spent one cycle too many in the hot tub yesterday, because I felt like I was burning up all night. I lowered the thermostat, slept on top of my duvet, and opened the doors so that a draught could pass between rooms, all to no avail. When I woke up, however, everyone else was freezing. I wondered if I might be ill, but we decided maybe 45 minutes was too long to boil alive in a busy hot tub. Since enduring a week of agonising heat rash in France last year, I’ve realised that I’m quite sensitive to warm temperatures.

We were up early to do another of the Zion trails before we left. We also wanted to spend most of the day seeing Bryce Canyon on our way to Page, AZ, so time was of the essence. We ate pre-bought croissants (dry) and wandered along to the Riverside Trail, which required us to get the shuttle bus to its last stop. This trail seemed quite popular, even though it was early in the morning. Perhaps it was because, rather than a steep mountain clamber, the Riverside Trail is a chill amble along a well-maintained, partially-paved path at the bottom of a canyon. It was a balmy morning, so the trail was hardly a challenge at all. The entire journey, we were tailed by troops of flat-tailed ground squirrels which, entirely unfazed by human presence, jumped between rocks and squeezed through narrow gaps in the path-side wall.

Back to the car, and farewell to Zion. I’m sure, in another world, we’d have stayed an entire week here and walked until our legs were ground to dust. However, another national park is calling to us. We drove on towards Bryce, although we stopped briefly at these large orange stacks at the side of the road, where a few rudimentary trails were marked in a lighter shade of orange. These stacks were quite impressive, even slightly ominous in their scale. I understand the geological processes that lead to this kind of terrain (it’s all helpfully explained on nearby signs) but I don’t think my brain can fully comprehend it. The timeframe is simply too massive. I cannot fit millions of years in my head. Instead, I have this vision of these dusty, lumpy orange pillars, ridged and spiked in strange places, jumping up out of the earth’s surface one day, like nails through a board. And if I thought that was impressive, then Bryce Canyon was enough to blow my mind. Suddenly, the sparse forest swerves up then drops sharply down into an enormous amphitheatre of red, orange and white rock, littered with ridges and spires. Breathtaking. We took a brief walk down into the ravine, where the terrain’s extreme verticality becomes even more obvious and dizzying once it’s looming over you. We drove further along to some higher viewpoints, and all we could do was stare in awe. We live in Essex, which feels at times like the flattest, most geographically boring region in the entire world. Stuff like this just doesn’t exist in England. Even if I lived beside it, I’m not sure I could become used to it.

We left Bryce and went to a steakhouse buffet in Bryce Canyon City, which was heaving with hungry customers. We sat in the waiting area alongside a surprising amount of Quebecois tourists dressed in cowboy gear while an overwhelmed staff member shouted out names as tables became free. After about twenty or thirty minutes, we were sat down. I nailed a beef brisket sandwich and copious helpings from the salad bar. By the time we left, it was already dark, with two and a half hours ahead of us to Page, AZ. I finally finished writing a chapter, overcoming over a week of holiday writer’s block. Then I read a book by the rear interior car lights, which felt to me very transgressive, as I’d always been told that turning on the car lights while the car is in motion is illegal. As it turns out, this is an utter myth. What other lies was I told as a child that I still believe? This question prompts much pondering.

America Diary - Day 8: Friday 11th April - Zion

Chaos reigned this morning. We woke up to the sound of Mum banging on the door – we were late! Looks like we relaxed too hard yesterday and slept through our alarms. We hastily threw everything into our bags and piled everything into the car and said goodbye to Las Vegas. We have only one night in Zion, so we wanted to get there as early as possible to make the most of it. The desert ridges surrounding Vegas eventually gave way to greenery. Greenery! I was actually surprised to the see the colour green again, especially so vividly, after four days in the desert. Slowly, the dusty yellows were replaced by the green-framed terracotta reds of Zion National Park and environs. Our accommodation is in the pleasant town of Springvale, a sort of access point to the national park, full of hotels, condos-for-hire and stores selling hiking supplies. Our family is staying in a cute little lodge on the bottom floor of a shared condo. It’s a quaint spot (although we did have to rearrange some of the furniture to make room for the pull-out sofa bed and the wall bed).

With a few hours of daylight left, we set off into the park itself. We agonised a little over which of the many trails to tackle in our limited time, but the guy behind the desk advised us to do the Watchman’s Trail, which takes roughly two hours and gives you a good view of the valley. It’s described as ‘moderate’ on the trail guide, but I assume those difficulty guides are based on the standards of experienced hikers, which we certainly aren’t. The trail itself was pretty steep, with major drop-offs into the void of red rock and cacti. I’m sure we’d have had no trouble if the sun wasn’t so intense. There was a nice breeze in spots, and the temperature isn’t as ruthless here as it is in Nevada, but the combination of a steep incline and the beating sun made us all very sweaty and breathless. Still, we persevered, spurred by the views of the park around us, particularly the titular Watchman – a vast and photogenic mountain that rises high above the surrounding terrain and burns bright red in the sun. Stopping regularly for swigs of water, we eventually made it up to the top of the trail as golden hour landed in the valley. I was worried Brother wouldn’t make it, as he had complained so frequently throughout the climb that he was basically a one-man soundtrack to the walk, but once we got back to the bottom he was proud of himself for doing it at all.

We got some food from another hotel’s restaurant. The food was good but the service was a little odd. I’m not sure if the kitchen was just overwhelmed with orders, but there were about five servers drifting around the restaurant with not a lot actually going on. Parents tried to signal several times only to be smilingly ignored. I’ve worked in hospitality so I know how it can be sometimes. Luckily the food was awesome. I had a burger. Loved it. We went back to our lodge, and after warm nights in Nevada it was a surprise to feel a cold breeze after sunset. It was so chilly, in fact, that I cut short my night swim and joined Dad in the hot tub, only to be joined by an American couple, then another, then another, until I felt like one of those macaques that bathe communally in Japanese hot springs. We made polite conversation but ultimately it got a bit too crowded, so we went back to the room and watched the first episode of When Life Gives You Tangerines, which was actually quite good.

America Diary - Day 7: Thursday 10th April - Viva Las Vegas

 Not much to report today. We had our first lie-in of the trip and went down to MGM Grand food court for an overpriced brunch before spending the next four or so hours vegetating at the hotel pool. Sometimes, this is what’s needed. We’ve been abroad for a week – there’s been a lot of travelling, a lot of late nights and early mornings. Though I didn’t want to go into the pool myself due to the atomic heat of the sun, I was happy to sit in the shade and attempt to write. I’ve got a manuscript due for the end of April (a self-imposed deadline that may prove to have been overly ambitious) so I thought I should at least try and get some work done. As it turned out, the heat was just a couple notches too high to properly focus. I’m not generally a precious person, but my brain seems to be very particular about the conditions under which it will enter a flow state. The ideal situation for me seems to be a brief bus ride into Cambridge, a coffee and cake at a café (bonus points if it’s a library or bookshop café), and then cup after cup of red berry tea until I either finish for the day or go bankrupt. An undervalued feature of the café environment is air conditioning, something I –after three nights in the desert – will never take for granted again. Even though I was physically at rest, trying to write was like trudging through mud, so I gave it up as a bad job and tried to read. The only trouble is, reading a good book makes me want to write. I’m reading Butter by Asako Yuzuki, a story which is getting better and better with every chapter, so I couldn’t focus until I felt like I’d made some decent progress on my own work. I went upstairs to get my notebook and wrote out the rest of the chapter in shorthand bullet-point form. Using a word processor always triggers my perfectionism, possibly because its visual resemblance to a finished draft, so I thought if I couldn’t get rid of the heat, I would get rid of my mental barriers. Writing in a notebook is much easier. I feel none of the same pressure to get things right on the first pass. I can write in the margins, between the lines, draw arrows. It’s like breaking a dam in my mind and letting the ideas flow without judgement. Finally satisfied, I could return to my book and allow myself to get engrossed.

The only distraction from then on was the pleasure of seeing Brother making friends in the swimming pool. Mum was valiantly trying to get him to wear his sunhat (sun + black hair + reflective pool water = bad news) but he ended up playing a game where some of the lads would do underwater handstands and try and catch an American football, thrown by another boy, between their legs. After so much gaudy, impersonal Vegas glitter, amidst bejewelled May-December couples sunbathing without speaking to each other, with enough Botox between them to mark them safe for recycling, there is something about seeing kids having fun that breaks your cynicism for a moment and makes you remember what holiday resorts are for. I do wonder if my knee jerk response to Vegas was a little unfair. The Strip is a kind of commercial purgatory, yes, but there is a whole city beyond the Strip, the largest in Nevada. There must be kids having fun out there, too; families being raised, communities of people with shared interests. If it exists, I’d like to see that side of Vegas. Real fun, not just the expensive performance of it.

Hard to stay on gloomy lines of thought when the weather is nice and there’s a drink in your hand. After the pool, we went up to the room to cool off, were briefly exposed to the horror that is Fox News (the less said the better) then went out into the city for dinner, sharing a pizza and salad at Giordano’s (very yum). We wandered further in search of a pirate show my dad used to love, but we discovered it had been discontinued since 2013. There have been a few moments like that, where my Dad’s fond memories of Las Vegas have been confronted with disappointing developments. It’s been a crazy stop, and not a bad one at all, but I do feel bad for my Dad. Vegas was his idea, but his idea is twenty years or so out of date. Much has changed since then. The cost of everything has skyrocketed, and everything from pleasant diversion to basic amenities are locked behind extra fees. But we’ve had a relaxing day and a good meal as a family, and that’s what we’ll remember when Sin City is far behind us.

America Diary - Day 6: Wednesday 9th April - Deserts and Decadence

 It was still a shame to leave The Ranch today, but I doubt we’d have had much choice. There was a scheduled resort-wide power cut today, which meant no light switches, no charging your phone and, crucially, no air conditioning. Definitely the right time to skedaddle. We packed up and decided to hit a few key sights in Death Valley before our trip to Vegas (and before the sun reached its peak). It was still swelteringly hot. Each stop consisted of a hasty jaunt up to the viewing platform, a view photographs and then back to the blissfully cool interior of our car. But the views are spectacular. The word ‘desert’ conjures visions of absolute arid emptiness, but the reality is that Death Valley (possibly the archetypal scorching wasteland) is a variegated patchwork of terrains. After taking in the vista of Zabriskie Point, where the undulating stone resembles the waves of a fossilised tide, we went down to Badwater Basin. Here, the word ‘emptiness’ rings true, but it’s a serene kind of emptiness. Located 282ft beneath sea level (a sign marked ‘Sea Level’ could be seen dizzyingly far above us on the mountainside), this is a small pool of water beside a vast white tract of perfect white salt. It’s said that the basin got its name after a traveller realised his mule wouldn’t drink from the massively saline pool, and he therefore devised the moniker of ‘Badwater.’ Walking along these surrounding flats, which stretch unimpeded into apparent infinity, save for the distant mountains beyond, is like traversing the surface of an alien planet. The salt reflects the sunlight to blinding levels and the heat is truly singular, but the overall effect is one of awesome tranquility. We walked out until there were no more fellow travellers in view, so that we had a full view of the empty expanse. Then, dry-mouthed and sweating, we beelined back to the car and drank gallons of water. The salt clung to the soles of our shoes and, despite our best efforts, we tracked white footprints into the black carpet of the car. Whoops.

The next stop was a region known as the Artist’s Palette, so named for the eclectic mix of colours in the stone resulting from a volcanic cocktail of different elements. Reds, pale greys, deep browns, even greens and blues. In our boldest venture yet, given that it was by now past noon and the glare of the sun was only intensifying, we decided to walk up to the apex of the nearby ridge to get a proper view of the land. Dad and Brother took the direct route up the hill, while I followed Mum and Sister via a detour through a narrow canyon to get close-up to the multicolours. I took a full bottle of water with me and had emptied it by the time we got to the top. I had to keep reminding myself it was still April. What this place is like in July, I dread to imagine.

Having experienced Death Valley to our satisfaction, it was time to make the journey to Las Vegas. The first major settlement I recall was a hilariously-named place called Pahrump (like a lyric from the Little Drummer Boy) which boasted a casino called the Nugget. You have to respect the temerity to imagine that punters would prefer a trip to the Pahrump Nugget over the casino capital of the West only 1 hour away. Kudos for ambition. I was excited to get into the hotel, but as we came into Vegas, little did I know how much I’d miss the peacefulness of the desert.

What is there to say about Vegas that hasn’t already been richly documented in popular culture? As I’ve said before, I have a soft spot for good theming, so the massive, fantastical facades of the various Strip casinos – pyramids, medieval castles, 1/3rd replicas of New York’s iconic skyscrapers – impressed me as they loomed over us on all sides. But there is an instant and lingering sense of artifice all around. It is the foundation on which the city has built itself. As the desert sun beams down from all sides, reflecting off the gold-tinted windows of the towering hotel blocks, the whole place is a flurry of overwhelming stimuli apparently designed to strobe you into submission. Flashing lights, thumping pop music, gaudy billboards advertising everything from designer bags to tribute concerts to local X-rated clubs, the stink of sugar, sewage and cannabis floating through it all. This region is called Paradise, but it is perhaps only a paradise for the megarich or the aspirational, to whom the endless barrage of advertising and bottomless opportunities for financial ruin present a convincing façade of affluence while shamelessly plundering your pocket and your soul. As we wandered the Strip to and from the aptly-named Bacchanal buffet at Caesar’s Palace, which was so expensive and huge that it nearly killed me instantly, we passed several rough sleepers at the roadside, and I realised how uniquely awful it must be to be homeless in Vegas. To sit all night long in the heat of the desert and engine fumes while tourists waste money on nothing and then walk past without a backward or inward glance. It’s at moments like this where the whole place feels less like a glittering nirvana and more like a theme park for the spiritually bankrupt. The best you can do is grit your teeth, try to bury your shame, enjoy yourself and ignore the fact that your wallet is rapidly emptying.

Mercifully, our hotel was away from all the noise, tucked behind the MGM Grand. I can safely say that if this is the standard of a 5-star hotel, I’ll happily settle for less. It’s nice to have a large bedroom and a balcony, but where our previous (much cheaper) accommodation has provided clean rooms and complimentary water, we discovered spots of dried blood on Mum’s sheets and the bottles of water were provided only at a fee of $9 PLUS TAXES. I wonder if these places are designed to take advantage of folks who spend money like it’s nothing, rather than cautious Midlanders enjoying a vanishingly rare taste of high society. Already over-budget, the parents nearly turned to ash when it became clear how much it would cost to eat out here. With a bit of when-in-Vegas spirit (and feeling ashamed that my parents were footing the weighty bill for what is supposed to be their 50th birthday trip) I bought us some tickets to the resident Cirque du Soleil show Kà at the Grand, and it’s safe to say that it was the right thing to splash out on. I’ve seen the troupe once, a long time ago, when they brought a touring show to Birmingham, and I still remember being awed by what I saw. Kà was similarly extraordinary. Even besides the stunning acrobatic work, including a staggering sequence of performers climbing and brawling between narrow poles on an rotating stage like balls in a spinning pinball machine, every aspect of the show was painstakingly detailed, from the set design to the giant musical instruments in the foyer. Studying the costume showcases after the show, which included headpieces that took 30-40 hours each to craft, was reminded of everything I love about the arts, and the things that triggered my love of filmmaking – the maximum effort taken to perfect minuscule details in the creation of fictional characters and environments. While there is no way to completely shrug off the innate guilt of being surrounded by such excess (nor should there be!), there is perhaps nowhere else that a performing arts company could acquire the budget to produce shows of this kind. If the arts scene in the UK had even half the funding and attention paid to the shows in Vegas, the industry would be in a much better place. But of course, these are the gilded products of filthy wealth. How could you replicate it elsewhere?

I was in the desert this morning. The land is vast, barren, simple and quiet. I miss it already.

America Diary - Day 5: Tuesday 8th April - Into the Valley of Death

We treated ourselves to a breakfast of store-bought pastries and filled the car up at a Bakersfield gas station before resuming the long drive into the desert. As a fan of Red Dead Redemption (and an even bigger fan of the movie Rango) the American desert, the Mojave in particular, has always held a special significance to me. This is in rather paradoxical contrast to my extremely low tolerance for heat. I approached the coming days, which will take us through to Las Vegas and beyond, with slight trepidation, tempered by the understanding that it’s unlikely I’ll get the chance to do this kind of expedition again.

As we left Bakersfield behind, the mountain-framed plains of California gave way to open expanses of arid yellow dirt. Before long, the striated reds and browns of Death Valley began to emerge. Even so, I could still see snow-capped mountains in the distance. It’s surreal to be in one of the hottest places on the planet and still be in eyeshot of snow. As the car travelled the winding, up-and-down roads that run along the ridges, it became clear that the temperature here varies staggeringly between relatively slight changes in altitude. As we later learned, the extreme heat here is caused by sun-warmed winds getting trapped by these steep mountain walls, which recirculate the air back into the valley and create this self-feeding cycle of warming. When we reached a viewpoint on a high ridge, the cool wind made for a surprisingly balmy clime, but once we got deeper into the valley, it was me who got the first taste of the heat.

Friends who know me well will be familiar with my famously weak bladder. It struck again as we drove across the desolation. This, I thought, was a particularly bad situation for me. Death Valley is not known for being abundant in bathrooms. The nearest settlement was still thirty minutes away and I, feeling the squeeze, would never make it that far. There was no service, so I couldn’t research California’s laws on “wild wees,” but the stronger the urge got, the more I realised I was willing to risk it. We were forced to pull off the road into a dusty lay-by, where two cars were already parked. I checked to see if there were any faces behind the tinted windows, but the cars were empty. Thank God. I was already nervous about the legality of the situation, not to mention rattlesnakes and scorpions lurking in the shrubbery, of which Mum (rather un-relaxingly) reminded me as I jumped out.

Whoomp! The heat hit me like a freight train. The worst heat I’ve ever experienced was on expedition to India. We changed over in Abu Dhabi airport, which is situated in the middle of the Arabia desert. We passed the time in the gloriously air conditioned airport until the early hours, when it was time to get a shuttle bus to the plane. Even though it was three in the morning, the heat was unbelievable. It’s like a thick, hot weighted blanket, only wrapped tightly around every inch of your body and squeezing impossibly tighter. It was July then, and it’s April now, so I don’t think the Death Valley heat was nearly as overwhelming as that, but the sunlight was scorching enough to make me think twice about exposing my most vulnerable parts in the middle of the desert. I was already sunburned as a result of the sun reflected off the sea during yesterdays boat tour, so I did not want to add to that. But the need to urinate was simply too strong. I stood there, feeling foolish, flies undone, eyes scanning for poisonous critters. Eventually, I relaxed myself enough to relieve myself, though I did have to adjust my position to account for the unexpected gusts of wind.

With that sorry episode behind me, I was able to enjoy the vistas of the valley around me. We stopped at the quaintly-named Stovepipe Wells (which sounds like an eccentric steampunk character) for the restrooms and to buy ice cold root beer from the general store. There was a curious raven hopping about, investigating the tourists. From there it was another short drive to Furnace Creek, where we’re staying. The resort is a startling explosion of green, palm trees swaying invitingly overhead, with several restaurants, a store and even an ice cream parlour. The heat was still bananas, but we drank ice water in the lobby and had a cheapish (as cheap as possible in this country’s hellish economy) dinner of pulled pork sandwiches. By the time we had finished our ice creams, the sun was going down, and in the absence of its blistering rays, the temperature became not only tolerable but pleasant. The sibs and I enjoyed a night swim at the resort’s pool while families played badminton and basketball nearby, and as we walked back along the lanternlit, tree-lined paths to our lodge, I reflected that it was a shame to be leaving tomorrow. If there was ever a place to spend the day asleep and the evening playing sports and lounging on the patio, this is it. Although, as it happens, we’re off to a five-star Vegas hotel tomorrow, so I can’t really complain. Saving money for holidays pays off, kids. 

America Diary - Day 4: Monday 7th April - We're Looking for the Whales

Morning dawned grey in Monterey, which did not bode well for our upcoming 3-hour boat expedition to go whale watching in the bay. We wrapped up warm and went back out onto the wharf. The now-familiar sound of barking sea lions (although it’s less like barking and more like guttural yelling) sounded from beyond the marina. The noise had a tinny echo, which made me think it was coming from inside the metal-sided warehouses on the opposite pier. It was only when we set off out of the harbour that we saw that the sea lions were actually underneath the pier, bobbing in the water and even draped across the wooden crossbeams that hold the stilts together. Not a sea lion rave, then.

The boat cleaved out towards Monterey Bay, its engine sounding like a saw sliding back and forth through a log, and our skipper’s voice crackled out of the speakers in the rear of the vessel, informing us that we were heading out in search of a pod of humpback whales. We clutched our binoculars and looked out over the Pacific. Behind us, seagulls soared in convoy with the boat. A dark cloud had settled over the coastline, but it was no less beautiful for it; in fact, the darkness created a high contrast between the distant layers of cliffs and mountains, like a watercolour painting. Then the dolphins came. Risso’s dolphins, apparently the largest species but for orcas. One moment the sea was a broad expanse of unbroken blue; the next, we were surrounded on all sides by dorsal fines arching up and down out of the water. My go-to idea of a dolphin is a bottlenose, so I was surprised to see that these guys have goofy rounded faces and big black eyes like portholes. It was as if a fleet of submarines had come to life and started doing backflips. We followed the dolphins through what seemed like an endless field of glass chunks floating on the surface. A closer look revealed them to be jellyfish, though not of a kind I’d ever seen before. They were roughly pebble-sized, with transparent, bubble-like bodies and midnight-blue undersides. There must have been hundreds of thousands of them, floating on their own or welded together with others, forming a kind of bubble-wrap layer over the water. I assume the dolphins have developed an immunity to their sting, as they were bouncing pretty happily through the swarm. As the boat passed, it parted the water into rolling curls which flipped the jellyfish onto their backs en masse. I have no idea how they right themselves when this happens. Maybe they just accept their new existence, legs in the air, head underwater, topsy-turvy.

Once we left the dolphins behind, we caught our first glimpse of a whale. If you don’t see the great dark mound of its back or the wing-like shape of its tail, chances are you’ll spot them by the geyser of misty water they blast out of their blowholes. This second half of the tour was spent chugging carefully after these whales, watching them dive and then waiting minutes until they surfaced again, hoping we weren’t scaring them off, hoping even more that they would perform those incredible skyward leaps you see in photographs. We heard a great splash behind us, but by the time we turned around all we could see was foaming water and a whale sinking slowly out of sight. I thought that would be it, but our skipper persisted and we did end up seeing them leap, although I doubt anyone was quick enough to snap a good picture. One humpback calf could be seen twirling in the water, splashing its giant fins about, as if waving to us. It might be a cliché to say it, but it really is humbling to be in the presence of creatures like this. Beasts of enormous size, slow and serene, so alien in shape yet clearly possessing a strange, unfathomable kind of consciousness, playing and singing as we do. The journey back to Monterey was spent in awed silence.

Once we got back to the pier, we ate fried calamari and fries while my dad devoured a clam chowder bread bowl, which is basically a hollowed out bread roll full of white stew. I’ve never been a fan of food that’s more liquid than solid, so this didn’t entice me personally, but I was happy for my dad, who seemed utterly thrilled. The big lunch was more than necessary, as it was then time to retrieve our bags and car from the hotel and begin the four-hour journey to Bakersfield, where we are stopping over on the way to Death Valley. The journey was unmemorable, as it was too dark to see much landscape, although we did stop at a roadside Carl’s Jr. for dinner. I think it is one of, if not the, quintessential American experience to eat greasy filth in a deserted, rundown fast food joint. We, nervous Brits as we are, ended up fleeing back to the car when Dad became suspicious of the heavily-tatted men lurking near the bathrooms. That’s what happens when you watch as much American gangster TV as my father does. 

America Diary - Day 3: Sunday 6th April - Monterey

The morning after the game, we woke up bright and early to see the sea lions at Pier 39. They are so loud. They lie in great lumpy masses on the jetties and scream like Tusken Raiders. The larger, rotund ones like to sit on their haunches and lift their heads into the air. I thought they were basking in the sun until I saw them doing it in the shade, too, which leads me to believe they’re communicating with some airborne sea lion mothership. After that it was time for some pastries (yum) and some Biscoff lattes (not yum; foul, even) before checking out of the hotel and taking to the road. Goodbye San Francisco. You have been bad for our wallets, but good for our souls.

A two-and-a-half hour drive took us along the west coast towards Monterey Bay. We stopped to buy lunch and I had to stop my younger brother from buying Kool-Aid of a colour I can only describe as ‘nuclear red.’ We were very excited to try Twinkies but discovered that they are maybe too sugary to be all that nice. We pulled into a seaside lay-by to eat our eclectic lunch of turkey wraps, sushi and various types of melon, and to take some pictures of the waves crashing over the rocks. From there it was another hour-and-a-half to Monterey, where we checked into the lovely Portola Hotel and marvelled at the trees in the lobby. We didn’t have much left of the day but we thought it would be nice to take a wander down towards Monterey’s Fisherman’s Wharf (much smaller than San Francisco’s) and see what our options were for dinner. There hasn’t been a huge amount of culture shock since arriving in the States. Most of its cultural differences have become familiar through TV or film. But I was surprised by how almost every single one of the restaurants that lined the pier had a spokesperson out front jostling for our attention. “Come on in, get yourself an entrée and you’ll get a free plate of calamari with your meal”: that sort of thing. It was a Sunday night, so the pier was decently busy, and the whole place was a blizzard of sales-pitching crosstalk. As tourists, we wanted to check out each shopfront and each menu before we decided where to eat, so we ended up rejecting a lot of very nice people, which always makes me feel bad, even when I know they’re trying to sweet talk me into paying $38 for a bowl of mussels. I’ve never experienced this in the UK, where the dining culture seems to encourage letting the restaurant’s prices and vibe speak for itself – either that or the owners can’t be bothered to pay an employee to stand outside all day and shill the menu items. One stringy dude was valiantly trying to promote his bistro’s crab dinner to my dad, and he obviously thought he’d got his hooks in when he asked “So shall we get you a table for five?” only for us to swiftly walk into the restaurant next door. I couldn’t look at the guy. But it was a pleasant relief that the dinner we ended up having was very nice, at a table overlooking the marina with wire sculptures of marine life all over the place. We ate a stupid amount, staggered back to the hotel, played a bit of rummy and then succumbed to the food coma.

America Diary - Day 2: Saturday 5th April - The Rock

Excluding a 2:30am (10:30am home time) wake-up, I slept like a baby until 7am. Jack 1, Jet Lag 0. I went to get dressed and realised I had a problem. I have no pants. I had piled them neatly in my bedroom at home and had totally forgotten to put them in the suitcase. Ashamed and faintly disgusted with myself, I put on yesterday’s and tried not to think about it. Any shame I felt was eradicated by a nip into IHOP for some breakfast. I saw a ‘New York Cheesecake Pancakes’ on the menu. I didn’t buy it, imagining that the sugar levels would immediately stop my heart, but I did briefly reflect that this might be the greatest country in the world.

Then, to Alcatraz. I had seen the island looming in the bay on our seaside walk yesterday, and it seemed to me a uniquely sinister figure. Perhaps it was the fact that so many famous fictional prisons (Shutter Island, Azkaban, Blackgate Penitentiary) took their cues from Alcatraz; perhaps it was the conjuration of the naturally unpleasant idea of being locked up on an island with violent criminals. As we stood on the boat chugging calmly on towards the prison, I felt a strange perversity in the fact that we were part of such a large group of tourists excited to explore this monument of state-sanctioned suffering. I am violently allergic to jingoism and I was afraid that Alcatraz would be its embodiment: a ‘thank God we locked these guys away’ tour. But the real experience could not have been further from my expectation. From the moment we pulled into the dock, where the defacement of the federal government’s warning sign has been preserved since the 1969 Native American occupation, I realised this was going to be a very different kind of tour. A permanent exhibition on the occupation was accompanied by one about the ‘Red Power’ movement, detailing the enduring legacy of Richard Oakes and the group of brave Native Americans who held the rock for over 19 months. Red lettering on the water tower still reads: “PEACE AND FREEDOM, WELCOME, HOME OF THE FREE, INDIAN LAND.” Inside the cell house, it was not the bogeyman kind of tour, but a very human account (with testimony of both guards and prisoners) of daily life in Alcatraz. I was touched by the way that, instead of lionising the US prison complex, our tour barely touched on the obvious (Capone barely got a single mention), and instead foregrounded the tragedy of the incarcerated, such as the story of Dutch Bowers, imprisoned for 25 years for stealing $16.58 in a fit of desperation and was shot trying to climb the chain link fence. Our guide took time to highlight the abuses of the state against Native people, in particular the nineteen Hopi leaders who were arrested for trying to prevent the kidnap and indoctrination of their children, as well as the manipulation of language in the press to obscure what had really happened from the general public. That the phrase ‘murderous-looking Apaches’ was applied to manufacture consent for this atrocity was emphasised by our guide, and it sent ripples of disgust through our tour group. “The fight continues,” our guide said. How correct he is. Warnings about media complicity in state violence ring particularly true in 2025, and I was quite moved that, even as the President makes sweeping unilateral decisions to eradicate public information on the ugliest (and most important) facets of American history, San Francisco’s National Parks have committed to their historical and cultural heritage.

After Alcatraz (from which the city looked even more expansive and beautiful) we took a walk into the city centre to buy me some underwear. I once again marvelled at the energy and multiculturalism of the city, but found it funny that American supermarkets are, vibes-wise, basically exactly the same as British supermarkets, only about five times more expensive. We caught the bus back to the coast and ate lobster tacos at Pier 39 while a nearby breakdancing troupe (very good!) poached onlookers to leapfrog over them, which made my dad actually flee in the belief they were trying to make him their next volunteer. The lobster restaurant had bins designed to look like lobster pots. I’m a sucker for good theming, and America is the land of theming. On the bus out to Oracle Park, some locals were intrigued by our accents and I badmouthed English cuisine to an innocently curious American girl.

BASEBALL. Where have you been all my life? We saw the SF Giants play the Seattle Mariners, and the sibs left the stadium infatuated with Lee Jung-hoo (who did admittedly play a phenomenal game). The energy of the stadium was infectious (Let’s go Giants!) and while I did end up wondering if America is the most advertisement-infested nation in the world, there is something guiltily charming about it all. It’s not as if it’s a surprise, after all, and so much of our understanding of America as a magical land of flashing lights comes from the sheer amount of LED billboards there. That said, I couldn’t shake off the lingering spectre of the Oracle company, whose name is now shared with the arena. My only real gripe* with San Francisco is the glut of advertising for ultra-wealthy tech conglomerates, especially when it comes to generative AI. It’s plastered everywhere – AI for image generation, AI for business, AI for spreadsheeting, AI for vetting taxi drivers, AI for internet security. Though I have some tolerance for AI as a tool for humans to make their lives a little easier, and I appreciate that SF is the tech centre of the West, this pervasiveness reeks more like desperation than of a gold rush. Perhaps it’s because all of the best parts of this city are a result of its lived-in-ness. There is a sense of irrepressible humanity here, which throws the sterile, transparently mercenary venture of generative AI into such stark relief. Never have I felt so menaced by the omnipresence of Big Tech as I have in my two days in this city. How can AI ever compete with the experience of hearing The Imperial March slowly fading in, followed by a portly middle-aged man shooting at full speed down the sidewalk on an electric scooter, a chihuahua sitting in a shopping bag that hangs from the handlebars? That’s real American lunatic energy there. God bless San Francisco. The devil take Oracle.

*(I lie; there is a second gripe, which is the Blue Moon beer I bought in Oracle Park which cost $18. I can buy a pint of the same for a fiver in the UK. What the hell is that about?)

America Diary - Day 1: Friday 4th April - The Long, Long Day

This morning, we woke up at 6 o’clock at a Heathrow Travelodge so that we could make it to the airport on time. Right now, I am writing from a hotel room in San Francisco. It is 8:15 p.m here. I have been awake for over 22 hours.

The decision to come to the United States of America for two weeks, travelling from California to Arizona through several national parks, was prompted by my parents’ recent 50th birthdays and my mother’s lifelong desire to be a cowboy. Given the recent political upheavals, I will admit (and I say this with only a trace of irony) that packing our bags yesterday felt quite like we were about to set off on a jolly old road trip across 1930s Germany. But the US is a big place, Trump is a very small man, and at the end of the day, the logic goes that if it’s all going to fall apart soon, Mum better fulfil those cowboy dreams while she can.

This is the first time in my twenty-one years of life that I have travelled to the United States. I’ve wanted to come here ever since my understanding of America developed from an exuberant fantasyland existing only on the television to a real-life nation that exists and can be visited. Now that I’m here, I still struggle to comprehend that what I’m seeing is real and that the city of San Francisco is a living, breathing place rather than a movie set. That sounds like a setup for a catastrophic disappointment, but in fact it’s been a delight. We have seen such sights in our half-day here that I feel like it’s absolutely necessary to keep a diary of what I’ve seen and continue to see on this trip, even if each entry is brief and written in varying states of exhaustion. I promised my girlfriend I’d keep a journal, so I thought I might as well upload it to the blog, too (especially given my expectedly lackadaisical attitude to blogging since January). 

The plane was fine. Airport security had it out for me today – I got my bag checked twice and my entire person thoroughly swabbed – but British customs officers are so genial that it wasn’t much bother. The 11-hour flight sort of condensed into a smaller block of time, so I couldn’t tell if my lack of tiredness once I arrived was legitimate or just a bloody-minded second wind. Nothing much to report flight-wise save for the irritating German child who kept poking his face between the seats in front. I was very excited by the sight of Greenland ice flats out of the plane window, though. First time seeing terrain like that in my life, even if it’s thousands of feet below me.

We arrived at San Francisco airport and passing through immigration was about 100x less stressful than expected. Dad identified our taxi driver as a “brother” by the Canto-pop he was blasting in the car. Then it was onwards to SF proper, and wow. What a city. I’m not sure if it’s just because I’m travelling, which heightens the novelty of everything you see, but by the time we got back to the hotel we had made a whole list of things that made us say ‘oooh.’ Guys on stilts, tiny yellow go-kart tour buggies, a Cybertruck (hilariously illegal in the UK), famous winding Lombard street, rickety old trams, a pair of shoes hanging from an overhead wire. As we walked around Fort Mason, we saw dogs gambolling about, people lounging amidst beds of wildflowers, buskers playing jazz, all with the scarlet towers of the Golden Gate Bridge as a backdrop. I was expecting to be overwhelmed by a big American city, but in fact I felt oddly at peace (and not just because I had been awake for nearly 20 hours and was beginning to drift into a semiconscious trance). It was as if the city knew it had visitors and was performing the role of a serenely quirky idyll for our benefit.

Our wandering took us down along the beachside promenade, and I was momentarily bewildered by how the sea smelled of Britain. On reflection, it should have been no surprise that the sea would smell like the sea, but that particular mix of salt, algae and seagull dung reminds me of family holidays spent on the coast of Devon or Northumberland. It seemed strange that such a homely smell could exist over here. I’m not sure what I thought a Californian beach would smell like instead. Barbecues, root beer and plastic, maybe.

We rode the tram to Chinatown. In what felt like rather a death-defying move, the sibs and I hung off the side as the tram rattled up and down the undulating slopes of San Francisco’s main roads. We ended up in the massive Chinatown district and had some food for the soul in a Hong Kong café. It feels quite serendipitous that Cantonese is a majority language here. Dad was thrilled by how much food on the menu was the kind of stuff he used to eat back home. My grandad always used to tell me that a childhood delicacy was condensed milk on bread. Dad ordered the Hong Kong equivalent: condensed milk with deep fried buns. He told me that he used to crack open both ends of the tin and pour it onto the buns like a gravy boat. I can’t fathom how that’s more efficient than just using one end, but it’s some nice insight into my dad’s upbringing.

We walked home, Chinatown bleeding into North Beach with its cocktail bars and pizza joints, the bustle of a Chinese high street flowing seamlessly into old Italiana. By the dusklight, all I wanted was to sit in the street and drink a margarita with a stranger. The city was alive and so was I. Twenty-two waking hours felt like nothing. That was until I stepped into the hotel room and immediately dissolved into bed. I’m writing this dog-tired and red-eyed. Eloquence is impossible in this state, but I know enough that travel is for me, whenever and wherever I can do it.