Before I forget, I promised I’d post my verdict on the sixth Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy book by Eoin Colfer. If you’re a fan of the first five, I think it’s definitely worth reading. For completeness sake, if nothing else. (If you aren’t the slightest bit interested, you might as well skip to the next paragraph now, whilst I let my geek out for a bit.) Can you honestly tell me you don’t want to hear how Arthur and co escape from the impending destruction of “the” earth at the hands of the Grebulons? A few bit part characters from previous books return, get developed further and play pivotal roles in the story. There are also a lot of random diversions to quote bits from the Guide, which I missed in the last couple of Douglas Adams Hitchhikers books, although they aren’t terribly original.
(For anyone skipping the sci-fi bit, I’m afraid I’m still on Hitchhikers, as the previous paragraph was becoming unwieldy and I thought a new one was required, so you’ll want to skip this paragraph too.) There are some memorable lines, although the occasional contemporary reference, whilst funny, makes me think it won’t age as well as the other books. A typical example being:
“The ship was yellow and ungainly and would never feature on a froody Sub-Etha spaceship show where middle aged ex-racing drivers threw it around a test track while making jolly xenophobic remarks and claiming not to understand all the knobs and dials. This ship was clumsy in the way that comets are not.”
One of the great things about the original is that a sci-fi novel originally published more than 30 years ago, with the radio play even earlier, avoids feeling dated despite the technological changes in that period. Beyond that, I stand by my original remark that there isn’t enough Arthur in book six, but give it a try. That said, I’m now reading “The Last Don” by Mario Puzo (author of the Godfather), which I picked up for free in a book exchange at a recent motel, and it’s a far better book, so maybe I’d advise you read that first.
Enough of my sidetracks. I had a fantastic time in San Francisco. I liked the city just as much as I’d expected to and for one of the first times on the trip I was actually sociable! The hostel had a nice sociable atmosphere and there always seems to be plenty of people around and up for a chat and a beer. In particular though it’s worth mentioning, Brian from Colorado, who was in a similar position to me, although he’d actually left his job with a bank and was taking a bit of time to travel, and Tatsuro from Japan who turned out to be a Leeds fan. Thanks to some advice from Jess, who’d been there before, my wandering around the city was slightly less aimless than normal. Parts of the city were incredibly steep. I think the weirdest thing I saw was a section of Lombard St, which has a natural 27% grade. It is made artificially windy (as in twisty, they don’t have a big fan at one end of it), so that traffic can actually traverse it. Still seemed pretty steep to me!
I also spent a day on a Wine Tour out to the Napa and Sonoma valley. In the morning though, we went to Muir Woods, which is a grove of Redwoods named in honour of John Muir who was the founder of the Sierra Club and considered very influential in the establishment of the first National Parks in the US. The trees were 100s of years old and it was a fantastic walk. I even have a grainy and jerky video on my camera of a family of deer that were wandering around at the far end of the trails. As for the actual wine part of the day, it could have been worse! Spending an afternoon being driven between various vineyards, being plied with “sample” after “sample” of different varieties. After I explained at the last vineyard that I wasn’t able to buy anything, because I was travelling on a bike and couldn’t carry it (not to mention the £30 price tags), they were kind enough to dig out a half bottle and gave it to me for free.
After a much need four nights, I loaded the bike up again and crossed San Francisco bay on a ferry to Vallejo. It was a pretty clear morning, which provided by far the best views of the city and the huge bridges that span the bay.
The day before I was due to leave I found out that Vallejo was home to one of the Six Flags theme parks. Six Flags has a reputation for some pretty cool roller coasters, so for $30 a ticket I thought it was worth a visit. I’d made an assumption that, with it being a Tuesday and schools not quite having broken up, that it would be pretty quiet and I could just hit loads of rides and be on the road again by midafternoon with my brain still vibrating around my skull. I’m not sure what other people’s schools were like, but at the end of every year they tended to organise a few trips that people could go on in the last week of term. One of which was always Alton Towers or Thorpe Park (big theme parks in the UK for anyone from the rest of the world reading this). I’m not going to go any further with this, because I’m pretty sure you can all imagine the chaos that ensues when 3,000 school kids are dropped on a theme park with minimal supervision.
The next day I rode on to Sacramento where I was due to get a train. Before that though I had a nice couple of days, including a lovely evening chatting with a French-Canadian couple where I wowed them with my command of their native language (honest). Unfortunately my travel plans fell apart when I went along to the train station the day before I was due to leave, to scope things out. I think I mentioned this is a previous post, but the stop I wanted was unmanned, so they wouldn’t have been able to unload my bike, which had to be disassembled and stored as checked baggage. In depression I headed back to the hostel where I found a copy of Star Wars on video (yes, video) and spent two hours going over my alternatives, with some help from another guy in the hostel who was stranded in Sacramento after the steering on his car broke and he was going to have to wait five days for a part.
Funny how life always manages to remind you that your problems are normally pretty minor. No matter how important they might seem.
Finally, listening to Glastonbury over the internet. It’s a shame this trip meant I had to give my ticket back. I wasn’t that bothered about most of the bands playing, but it would have been nice to have gone with so many of my friends. Hope everyone is having/had a great time. Inexplicably BBC 6 Music is available live in the US, even though any other live streaming content seems to be blocked. The Flaming Lips are being so incredibly stereotypical it’s untrue. Ten minutes on the air and they’ve already hit “ain’t smoking weed cool” (crowd cheer and which the BBC just apologised for) and “didn’t George Bush suck” (crowd boo). I know I’m not a fan of Bono’s rants, but that kind of thing always just seemed too tick box. Groove Armada and Gorillaz, much better.
Storm has now passed by, so I’m off to get some food before going to see Toy Story 3 at the cinema in a bit.
Andy
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