The Breaking of the Fellowship

Short Version:
Anoushka and Craig head to Oz, Janine and I to Santa Barbara

Long Version:
From ratty, pot-holed narrow single-carriageway roads to well-maintained multiple lane freeways in the blink of an eye. Lunch stop in San Diego at the Kiwi Bar, which had a Bay of Plenty Steamers rugby jersey on the wall above Anoushka's head, as well as the detritus of a large group of Brazilian football fans who'd just seen their team demolish Chile in the World Cup Round of Eight. Inhaled delicious foods, then hit the road north, where the Breaking of the Fellowship awaited us.

First, though, there was LA traffic to negotiate, which Craig did with aplomb. Then there was the Hacienda's bar's Happy Hour, which had half an hour remaining when we arrived; plenty of time to sample and reject as overly-vile the $2.50 Miller Genuine Draft beer and still have time to down somewhere in the order of eleven $3 margaritas between the four of us before jumping the complimentary shuttle to the nearby mall, and dinner at the California Pizza Kitchen. Our friendly, fruity El Salvadoran waitperson Miguel was very apologetic about the pineapple-free BBQ Hawaiian, but we were busy running through everyone's best and worst moments of the Mexican trip to care. And when it came down to it, missing pineapple from a pizza kind of paled in comparison to pretty much everything we'd hit in the past fortnight.

Next morning we rose and showered, watched the end of Paraguay v Japan, then Janine and I left Craig and Anoushka packing for their impending flight to Melbourne and made our way past those members of the teenage geek convention who were up and about to the restaurant, where we ate delicious foods and fluffed around on the internet. Loaded our stuff into the Reaper, collected Craig and Anoushka, and hit the massive electronics store before rolling into Island Burgers for a) delicious foodburgers, b) never-ending refills of soda*, and c) Espana v Portugal on many enormous televisions. Espana went through, leaving the so-called-ladies bereft at the absence of Mr C Ronaldo from the remainder of the competition, and then it was time to farewell our super-awesome travelling companions, off to Melbourne to be responsible adults. Goodbye, C&A. You guys were truly excellente to travel with, and we're looking forward to seeing you again soon!

Took a while for the girls to finish their hugging and stuff**, but eventually Nene and I hit the road alone, heading north through sunny LA and rainy Ventura and then on to cloudy Santa Barbara, where we found an auto parts dealer which sold appropriate fuses for radio/horn/lights repair, and then found our way to Amy's house in Goleta, ready and able to help her shift house. Apart from Janine, who was unenjoying a sore back and asthma. As it turned out, letting agent shenanigans meant no shift, so we pitched our tent on the back lawn, learned about the bobcats of Goleta's suburban parks, and went to the most excellent grocery store ever (Hi Trader Joe's! Thanks for having so much excellent stuff and so many cool and hot staff!***).

Woke the next morning to rain, and hordes of hummingbirds, chirping and buzzing around the place. We set ourselves up outside once the rain stopped, and did some bike maintenance while watching the hummingbirds enact territorial warfare, with the feeder full of sugar-water at the epicenter. Revisited Trader Joe's for delicious trip foods, then went in search of cameras, which basically meant Janine trying features and enquiring about warranties while I took really bad photos of other shoppers, mucked about on the internet, and generally annoyed everyone. I did prove useful eventually, though, by using the store's internet access to find better pricing on a competitor's website and getting them to price-match down $50 on Janine's new favorite toy. None in stock, though, so we had them set one aside at the next store up the line northwards, in Santa Monica.

And then it was time to break out the bike and go ride up a hill with hill-climb-specialist Amy. Nene's back was still complaining, so my plan to let the two of them go and then noodling up the hill at my own leisurely pace was thwarted. Amy and I rode**** uphill for 30 minutes, plus a few more because Amy's a sadist. Then we rode back down****, which was much faster, and also much more scary. Two weeks drinking beer in Mexico does not a fitness nor a riding ability improvement make.

Back to Goleta, where we learned about defects in crystals and watched old South Park episodes***** while eating delicious Indian foods, then out to the tent, and to sleep, ready to get up and hit the road north early the next morning.






* = Root beer is delicious, for the first five giant-size cups. After that it's a bit yucky.

** = Took Craig and I all of a minute to finish punching each other, after which we stood around with our hands in our pockets, watching our wives express emotions and stuff.

*** = The hot ones are fairly self-explanatory, but the coolest one was the enormously tall and fat black dude who was minding the "Try our delicious corn chips and salsas!" stall, who was singing, loudly and tunefully, and completely unrelatedly to the music on the store sound system.

**** = May have involved some walking.

***** = A double episode about Peruvian folk bands. I gained extra amusement at one point when a giant guinea-pig dressed in a bee suit was shown in the parking lot of a Best Buy store, as we'd encountered a swarm of bees in a Best Buy parking lot earlier in the afternoon