California Trip: Wedi Blino yn Bakersfield
Blino is the very expressive Welsh word for tired.
After Starbucks revived me from comatose to wake-awake exhaustion, I followed Em to Bakersfield airport to turn in her rental and save fifty bucks. Observation #1 is for those who haven't experienced California freeway driving. It's all true: the only things we didn't get in 12 miles to the airport were a drive-by shooting and a high-speed chase. I will allow that Route 128 around Boston is adequate preparation for California freeways.
Observation #2: Bakersfield's downtown explains a lot of the city's low status amongst other Californians. When the newest cultural feature is a Deja Vu strip club, you know your city centre has some renewal to achieve. What can one expect? According to the local t-shirts, the city seal features a heatstruck coyote gasping in the dust ("but it's a dry heat.") There's a certain leakage of initiative under those conditions, and I was in a mood to conform.
Observation #3 is that a destination with a population that's 40 percent Hispanic offers certain compensations for skipping Albuquerque's Old Town. Mexican food is varied, plentiful, affordable and three-alarm. Emily lives a block from Jacalito's, which scratched my jalapeno itch admirably. If I were the one there, I'd probably eat Mex every night for the three months. I might have to repeat some restaurants, but never a menu item. There seem to be other restaurants, too, but why not indulge a constructive mania? The city is also close enough to the vineyards ( two-three hour trips are bupkis here) that wine is a topic of profound and serious study. Mexican cuisine for dinner and wine for lunch for three months? I could stand it if my stomach and liver could, and if they couldn't, there are worse ways to go.
Just as well the good food was a block away, because after dinner I made the mistake of going to bed and remained happily immobile for nine or ten hours. Given the choice of driving Emily to work or sending her off with the car, I waved her away, pleased that I wouldn't see the inside of that car again for a long, long, time.
If you want to draw attention to yourself in suburban southern California, take a walk. People drive, ride bikes, skateboard, rollerblade, and run, but they do not appear to walk for the fun of it. We walked upwards of five miles, exploring the environs of East Bakersfield: lots of suburban houses, fast food, malls, and gophers.
There's a lot of information on the Web about gophers. It seems to be written mostly by humans with gardens, grass and grudges, for it's hostile (this is a rather tame example.) The gophers express their opinion by showing up in any place that isn't paved, and some that are. They weren't my lawns, so my sympathies were with the gophers. It seems to me that if you live in the desert and are fool enough to try growing a lawn, the gophers are the least of the visitations you can expect from an affronted Mother Nature.
Emily's workplace provides the apartment, which is comfortable, gated, and has all the appropriate California comforts. The outdoor hot tub wasn't working, but the pool helped blow some cobwebs away, and one didn't even have to share it with the gophers. Damn, you could get used to this. It helps to remember that Bakersfield's distinctive weather features in winter are floods and fog, that it too is prone to earthquakes and mudslides, and that the pleasures of 90 degree weather pall after three or four months. Of course, Bakersfieldians (? Baked goods?), like everyone else we met, were horrified by the Northeaster.
Dinner was at the local retro malt shop, burgers, fries, shakes: breaking training seriously. As a New Englander brought up on "frappes," I had of course to negotiate the language barrier to order. Whatever it was, it was cold, tasty, and probably more caloric than I want to know about.
What a pity we aren't gifted with perfect foresight. Settling down to bed, I was thinking that the adventures were about over. Stay tuned, Pilgrims.
After Starbucks revived me from comatose to wake-awake exhaustion, I followed Em to Bakersfield airport to turn in her rental and save fifty bucks. Observation #1 is for those who haven't experienced California freeway driving. It's all true: the only things we didn't get in 12 miles to the airport were a drive-by shooting and a high-speed chase. I will allow that Route 128 around Boston is adequate preparation for California freeways.
Observation #2: Bakersfield's downtown explains a lot of the city's low status amongst other Californians. When the newest cultural feature is a Deja Vu strip club, you know your city centre has some renewal to achieve. What can one expect? According to the local t-shirts, the city seal features a heatstruck coyote gasping in the dust ("but it's a dry heat.") There's a certain leakage of initiative under those conditions, and I was in a mood to conform.
Observation #3 is that a destination with a population that's 40 percent Hispanic offers certain compensations for skipping Albuquerque's Old Town. Mexican food is varied, plentiful, affordable and three-alarm. Emily lives a block from Jacalito's, which scratched my jalapeno itch admirably. If I were the one there, I'd probably eat Mex every night for the three months. I might have to repeat some restaurants, but never a menu item. There seem to be other restaurants, too, but why not indulge a constructive mania? The city is also close enough to the vineyards ( two-three hour trips are bupkis here) that wine is a topic of profound and serious study. Mexican cuisine for dinner and wine for lunch for three months? I could stand it if my stomach and liver could, and if they couldn't, there are worse ways to go.
Just as well the good food was a block away, because after dinner I made the mistake of going to bed and remained happily immobile for nine or ten hours. Given the choice of driving Emily to work or sending her off with the car, I waved her away, pleased that I wouldn't see the inside of that car again for a long, long, time.
If you want to draw attention to yourself in suburban southern California, take a walk. People drive, ride bikes, skateboard, rollerblade, and run, but they do not appear to walk for the fun of it. We walked upwards of five miles, exploring the environs of East Bakersfield: lots of suburban houses, fast food, malls, and gophers.
There's a lot of information on the Web about gophers. It seems to be written mostly by humans with gardens, grass and grudges, for it's hostile (this is a rather tame example.) The gophers express their opinion by showing up in any place that isn't paved, and some that are. They weren't my lawns, so my sympathies were with the gophers. It seems to me that if you live in the desert and are fool enough to try growing a lawn, the gophers are the least of the visitations you can expect from an affronted Mother Nature.
Emily's workplace provides the apartment, which is comfortable, gated, and has all the appropriate California comforts. The outdoor hot tub wasn't working, but the pool helped blow some cobwebs away, and one didn't even have to share it with the gophers. Damn, you could get used to this. It helps to remember that Bakersfield's distinctive weather features in winter are floods and fog, that it too is prone to earthquakes and mudslides, and that the pleasures of 90 degree weather pall after three or four months. Of course, Bakersfieldians (? Baked goods?), like everyone else we met, were horrified by the Northeaster.
Dinner was at the local retro malt shop, burgers, fries, shakes: breaking training seriously. As a New Englander brought up on "frappes," I had of course to negotiate the language barrier to order. Whatever it was, it was cold, tasty, and probably more caloric than I want to know about.
What a pity we aren't gifted with perfect foresight. Settling down to bed, I was thinking that the adventures were about over. Stay tuned, Pilgrims.
posted by Uncle | 00:21
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