Confidentiality LA

My final stop on this California too was to be the great city of Los Angeles.  It is a long, tedious drive from San Diego along interstates that look much the same, but the final destination was somewhere special.  Dockweiler State Beach stands between the end of LAX airport and the Pacific Ocean.

It is by no means the prettiest campsite you will ever see.  It is just a large car park that has electric hookup, sewer and water but then it does not have to try to hard.  You step off the site and directly onto the beach.  What else do you need?

Hatty made several very good friends and we did not really see that much of her.  From early in the morning until the last light was fading over the horizon she was playing.

Since we were there for a few days I organized a few activities.  Matt humored me by accompanying me to see the USS Iowa.  I love visiting big ships and the US is that last place you can go on a real battleship.  Iowa was the lead ship of her class and fought in World War 2 before being reactivated for the Cold War (losing some of her conventional weapons for the cruise missiles).

Matt didn't seem quite as keen as me.

I still want to go on a Nimitz class super-carrier but that will have to wait.

The others spent their time on the beach and poor Ben caught rather too much of the sun.  He would have been better staying in Needles.  To alleviate the situation I proposed we go somewhere with air-conditioning.  There was a Dave & Buster's nearby and we could go play some arcade games.  It's a serious business.

For those who have not have the pleasure - typically the games at Dave & Buster's give you tickets which you can trade in for prizes.  I won't pretend we were all contributing as much but we did rather well in our ticket collection.

Harriet got a telescope out of this haul.

LA is a fantastic city, much maligned but full of life.  Where else could we have sat on a beautiful beach and watch the sun bid us all farewell.  The fires you see are from parties taking place on the beach.  I'm sure they were all enjoying their cases of sodas and back remedies.  Don't worry, our lips are sealed.

Sadly for me, it was back in First Class and off to New York.

Cats and Dogs

The rationale for San Diego was two-fold.  First, its climate is one of the most pleasant on earth and you would think would extinguish all memories of Needles (it did not).  Second it is home to the world-famous zoo.  I knew that there were cheetahs and that alone was enough.

It was a long drive from Palm Springs that took us through small towns and cities before we hit Southern California proper, with its sweeping, congested freeways.  Our KOA was one of the largest I have ever stayed on and though we were at the end of a row and passed by a lot of traffic it was still pretty nice.  There were two jumping pillows and it was full of kids.

I decided we needed something nice to eat and some decent wine so I took a trip alone to Whole Foods (Southern California is my spiritual home for a good reason).  I hate shopping, especially food shopping, but it was good to be back immersed in that culture that manages try-too-hard in a laid-back way.  San Francisco has all the culture (and the best wine you will ever find in a dive bar) but there is something in the whole oxymoronic nonsense that is Southern CA that I love.  I bought J sushi and myself (well all of us) some organic beef, chicken and a classy Prosecco.  It was slap bang in the middle of gay San Diego - no WeHo admittedly but still obviously a place full of noisy Pride and people for whom oenology was second nature).

We left early for the zoo and shook our heads at all the crazies jogging up and down hills in the heat  We found a parking spot that was not an electric vehicle charging station and bought our tickets.  Now, I had already found out about the 'Backstage Pass' but I wanted to ask whether or not it would include cheetahs.  The line was so long though and filled with morons so I just decided to buy a ticket from the machine and take my chances.

J stayed at the RV.  It meant he could have a rest day and look after Pippin.  The rest of us took a selfie as we waited for the tour.

It's a great zoo but I am going to concentrate on the Backstage Pass.  It's expensive - $105 on top of the entrance fee - but it is a lot cheaper than flying to Africa.  At noon Hatty and I waved bye to the others and went off to the show.

It's an intimate up-close experience with the animals (there were about 15 other people there).  It began when they brought out a Porcupine on a leash to see us.

So far so good - we got a photo opportunity with Porcupine too.

Next part was an interactive feeding session - with a Rhino.  You lay the vegetable slice on you open palm and then must lift it up to the roof of his mouth and pull out as he takes it.  It's a little bit disgusting if you are not a fan of drool so I was impressed that Hatty managed to do it (although not exactly concealing her distaste).

We got to pet the Rhino too - you are encourage to scratch it beneath its skin fold.

Next stop on the tour was feeding the Flamingos.  Flamingo food is dog kibble in a cup of water.  You hold it down low and they come along to feed.  It's a little intimidating when you are sitting down.

Next to the Flamingo enclosure was a zebra with a donkey.  They are sometimes part of the tour but it was a rest day for them.  Despite that they followed us carefully and it was clear that they wanted to be part of the show so our guide opened up the gate and let them do their bit (smiling and bowing).  

The reason for the two animals is that the zebra is tame.  They do not want to put it back with the general population of zebras so it spends its time with the donkey.  The donkey is domesticated and provides a bridge between the wild animal and people.  We will see this again later.

I was starting to worry now.  What if it was a rest day for the cheetah?  Still we carried on to the next exhibit to meet the wolf.  This was interactive part - we were to howl to encourage the wolf to join us but it remained unmoved.  All the howling you hear is the audience.

Although it did eventually pay off.

Our next visitor was a clouded leopard.  My heart sank because I thought that was going to be our 'big cat' and that indeed the cheetah was having a day off.

It was nearly the end of the show.  The presenter told us that they were going to do some housekeeping announcements about how to leave because we would not concentrate when the final animal came out.  They explained where to leave and how to pick up the photographs and then the final animal arrived or rather the final two animals arrived.

The first animal was a dog - lupus familiaris.  Like the donkey it was a helper animal the zoos use.  In this case the wild animal was none other than a cheetah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cheetahs are paired with dogs early in their life and the dog provides a comforting presence who is much more used to dealing with humans.

I have no words for how excited we both were.

Here's one last shot of us all together

After the show we met up with Cathy, Matt and Ben.  We saw a few more animals, finishing withe Giant Panda.  It was an exhausting but memorable day.

Rock-star Cheetah

Palm Springs is a notable city.  It is well known in the gay community as something of a playground and it has a much higher population of same sex couples than one would expect (think of it as a desert Brighton if you will).  It is replete with golf courses, shopping and everything the discerning California tourist may desire.

It also has a zoo.  This may not seem exciting but it is a special sort of zoo: it has cheetahs.  The cheetah is Hatty's favorite animal.  There are, alas, no cheetahs in any New York zoo so we travel to see them (Hatty and I made a trip to Philadelphia for just this purpose).  The moment I found this out I knew we had to go so Hatty, Ben and I set off for the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens.

They are very proud of their cheetahs.  Right at the entrance there are bronze statues of a cheetah and cubs - if you look behind at the ticket booth you will see the prominent Cheetah face (the black lines from the eyes down being one of the most recognizable differences between cheetahs and other cats).

The actual cheetah exhibit was large but of course the cheetahs were not doing very much in the heat.  So we did get to see them and it was enough. The rest of the zoo was great too.  It had many other African animals including the giraffe as well as a petting zoo full of newly born baby goats.

The jaguar was popular too but there is only one cat for her.  We had stop for another picture on the way out.

In the afternoon I dropped most of them off at a shopping center while Matthew and I went to the Palm Springs Air Museum (he is learning to fly at the moment so I thought this would be interesting).  This is an impressive museum attached to Palm Springs airport and has a large number of World War II planes (as well as some more recent planes, including a very nice F-14 Tomcat parked outside).   The amazing thing is that many of these planes still actually fly and there were many interesting guides who told us all about the planes and their history.

When we met everyone else I could tell from J's face that was something was not quite right.  He shook his head and told me I would have to ask her.  Hatty excitedly told me that she had bought a leather jacket (technically it was more of a waistcoat) so she 'could look like a rock-star'.  Never let it be said that she does not know what she wants.

I didn't tell her but I knew that this cheetah outing was only the starter.  For the main event we were heading to the San Diego, with its world-famous zoo and I hoped that something special was going to happen there.  I would not be disappointed.

The Baptism of Fire

I am well adjusted to the Fahrenheit scale, at least for high temperatures.  80 is pleasant, 90 is too hot and 100 is way too hot.  The air temperature is one factor but there are other dimensions, notably the humidity.  The humidity of the South had been punishing so the dry heat of Texas was a relief.  However, at some point the numbers become quasi-meaningless as the dial continues to turn.

You see, when I arrived in California it was in Palm Springs, a desert city.  My abiding memory of Palm Springs from 2006 was that it was intolerably hot, yet I did not dare mention this.  The RV you see had just come from Vegas and had stopped for a couple of days in Needles, CA.  The trauma of Needles on the occupants was such that its tale will be told decades into the future.  The thermometer only went to 120F and so at some point no one really knew how hot it was or cared about the fact that this was a dry heat.  Dry describes Needles - it holds the record for the hottest recorded rain in history - 115F (it evaporated so was only barely detectable).

The occupants of the RV had grown with the arrival of J's sister Cathy and her sons Matthew and Ben.  For these residents of Staffordshire, England (high August temperature of 20C/68F) this was to be an almost literal baptism of fire.  Cool Palm Springs rarely bothered to reach even 100F.

So they were delighted no doubt to hear me complain about the weather.  This is coupled with the fact that I arrived from a very pleasant New York.  Incidentally I had a great send-off from New York as the this photo at Kennedy Airport shows.  

Another fact that may have counted against me was the way in which I arrived.  It was expensive to travel at that time so to save money I used air-miles.  Alas the only availability I could get was a First Class ticket to Los Angeles on American Airline's new Transcontinental Service.  First Class has five seats on either side of the plane so no need to worry about whether you want an aisle or window seat because it's both.

I will leave you with the view from my seat, which was a little tighter than an international first seat and was more akin to international business class.  No sympathy please, I don't like to complain.

A Short Lived Shark Tale

I had planned to write a blog post on my observations on the way in which Hatty makes friends.  She has made so many on this summer RV trip.  Typically, she begins by scouting out the campground for signs that there are children of her age.  Even if she does not see them she recognizes the clues outside the trailers and RVs: toys, children's chairs and so on.  Though it is quiet she will get on her bike and start circling the campground, like a shark, single-minded in pursuit of its goal: friends.

That is not to say she cannot spend time by herself.  In San Diego I met her by the store and asked why she was not on the jumping pillow.  The other kids she explained were just trying to bounce her off.  I used to worry that rejection would be too hard to bear but in reality she is well aware of just how mean spirited others can be.  Her reaction is not to lose confidence but simply to move on.  When I met her by the store she was thoughtfully watching the arcade game.  It was a gun range type game - we do not encourage her viewing guns as toys so she is not allowed to play but she was still fascinated by how the machine worked.  It was set up like an old garage with one of the cars from the Disney movie and periodically some part of it would come alive.  She was content to watch this from a distance while waiting for a new friend.

She has touched so many lives.  Often the parents will come and tell us directly how wonderful she has been.  They are also curious to see, I suppose, whether she is telling the truth because so much of our story is unusual.  I confirm that we live in New York City and that she was born in California.  Her accent is so English to them as we hear more and more the American idiom.  Often times I get the sense of parents grateful for her reaching out to their otherwise shy children.

The original plan for this post was somewhat glib and centered around the shark idea.  Yet this morning I was hit for six and the story takes a more serious tone.  I received an email from the father of one of her very good friends from the early days of the adventure.  He did not quite know how to tell me in email so he just came straight out with it.  His wife, Hatty's five year old friend's mother was killed two weeks ago in a road traffic accident.

He told me that they were, unsurprisingly, still lost but one thing they did was to look through photographs.  The girl would list the family and friends that she did still have with her in the world and invariably Hatty was mentioned in that list.

I had been dwelling recently on the fact that the trip was short and indeed we are entering the home stretch.  I hardly knew what to say to him except to promise that whatever it took we would stop off in their home state on the way home.  So there it is, I have much on my mind just now but the words just do not seem enough.  I'll dwell instead on what I hope and believe to be the power of friendship, precious in those moments that are far away from happiness, a bulwark in the most capricious of times.