USA 2001 - Day 7

Today I will be using a screw round, push back and up tap.

We picked up a leaflet on ‘whale watching’ last night in the motel and drove down to the sea front to find the place in order to book ourselves on a trip today. Hope it’s not too short notice. The leaflet had a small map of where the place was but we couldn’t find the damn place and had to ask for directions – again. We eventually found it and booked ourselves on a midday trip. It’s aboard a large catamaran taking about twenty or so people and the whole trip lasts for two and a half hours.

It was now 11 am and we hadn’t had any breakfast so we drove back along the front and stopped at a diner we’d passed earlier. It was called Sambo’s. Now I know what you’re thinking. You think I made everybody eat there just because of its name don’t you? Well you’re right, I did. The place looked just like all the other fast food restaurant chains to me but with the one big advantage over the rest – its name. Apparently this restaurant was the last remaining diner of many Sambo’s that used to exist but they didn’t say why the others had disappeared. I think we can probably assume why can’t we?

I couldn’t make my mind up whether the name Sambo’s had any racial significance or not and then I thought, of course it bloody does, who am I kidding? Even if it didn’t, can you imagine a restaurant in England with that name? The PC police would have closed it down before you could say watermelon, I bet. In fact, although we think of the US as the most fanatically politically correct society ever, they seem to be remarkably non-PC in lots of ways. For instance, I heard a DJ on the radio talking about Paul McCartney and while discussing his personal life he said, “….of course he’s now going out with this one-legged model….”. Don’t hear that very often on the BBC do you?

Anyway, back in Sambo’s I decided on just a small breakfast of Corned Beef Hash, Two Eggs, Hash Brown, Pancakes, Coffee and Blueberry Muffins. Decided to be a bit cautious as I didn’t want to throw up in the boat.

Crawled out of Sambo’s feeling and probably looking like the fat man eating spaghetti who explodes in Monty Python’s ‘The Meaning Of Life’ and made for the boat trip. Although the sun was shining there was a very cold wind, in fact ever since we’d arrived in California the weather had been pretty disappointing, mostly overcast and really not T-shirt and shorts weather at all.

The whale watching trip consisted of a two and a half hour cruise off the coast of Santa Barbara to catch glimpses of giant grey whales on their way to the Bering Sea. On board was a marine life expert who wandered around and was available for chats and questions throughout the trip. There are certain areas where the whales tend to gather and the catamaran sailed out and basically waited around until a whale made an appearance or if not, moved on. I had the camcorder with me and what usually happened was that first you would see a disturbance on the water surface followed by a spout or splash of water and then if you were lucky the whale’s tail or part of its body would surface.

In reality, all this happened very quickly. People on deck would suddenly shout things like, “Over there at 10 o’clock! To starboard there seems to be one! Oh look there’s one!”. Now, I had the camcorder trained on this huge expanse of ocean all through this but my only field of vision was obviously only what I could see through the viewfinder. If anything happened outside of that I had to either swing the camera around and focus on where I thought the damn whale was supposed to be or look away, locate the whale and then re-focus the camera on it once I knew where it was. Either way it was impossible to get shots of whales that made any sense, they were there and gone in seconds. I’ve got lots of interesting video of the ocean though.

During the trip the breezy conditions were turning into cold gale force winds to the extent that many people had to get covered up from head to toe in blankets to keep warm. There were quite a few people on board who’d come prepared wearing anoraks, jeans and woolly hats but all we had were our T-shirts and shorts. Silly us, we hadn’t thought to bring our anoraks, thermal vests and gloves to California.

After seeing the whales we sailed down the coast and we had a chance to see dolphins and sea lions. Today’s trip was one of the highlights of the holiday, Emma, Sophia and Pauline were particularly enthralled by it all.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around Santa Barbara. It really is a nice place. They do say that, (and read this next bit out loud in a strong sincere American accent)

“Birds Fly South For The Winter. Unless They Live In Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara – Where Summer Never Ends.”

I saw a hotel advertising its facilities as

“100% Smoke-Free, Pool, Spa and Sauna. Fresh Bakery Breakfast. In-Room VCR, Air Conditioning and Refrigerator. Patios and Balconies. Walk to Everything.”

It was that last sentence that bothered me. Did it mean you could walk to everything in the hotel or did it mean everything around the hotel was in easy walking distance? Judging by the number of slobby overweight Americans around I like to think it was a carefully coded command to walk to everything in the hotel. “because the management is just too fed up with pushing you fat breathless hulks from your own room to the breakfast room, to the pool, to the patios and balconies and then back again to the restaurant for the third or fourth time in the day. Just stop eating so much and walk for Christ’s sake”.

That’s how I read it anyway…

A few of the more interesting establishments we came across were

“Granny Winkles Irish Restaurant”

“Tenacious Tanning – High Output 12 Minute Beds. Gives You That Day On The Beach Tan”

“Karl Skint’s Farmer’s Boy Restaurant. Family Ownership Since 1958 –

75 Omelettes

“The World’s Only Gourmet Toffee”

And my all-time favourite –

“Steven J Giles – Estate Agent – Multi-residential Needs. “Service and Integrity Are Not Just Words To Me. They Are Values That Guide My Work and My Life.”

Pass the sick bag.

We moved on, not before time I hear you say, to a place about 100 miles further along the coast with the unusual name of San Luis Obispo. Got there about 8 pm, checked in to another Motel 6 for the night and immediately went out to what became the kid’s favourite eating place – Denny’s. I had a small supper of 12 chicken wings in BBQ sauce served with French fries and toast. Not sure what the toast was doing in there but I ate it anyway.

Denny’s is a 24 hour family restaurant and seems to be everywhere we go. For some reason Emma and Sophia are smitten with Denny’s and if they had their way we’d have all our meals there for the rest of the holiday.