Big Sur and UCSB leave their marks.
Concept of time totally abandoned.
From San Francisco the boys hired a car and picked up Doug, their American buddy from Florida who had decided to fly out and meet MT in California to provide accompaniment on their final leg down the West Coast. Highway 1 weaves for 150 miles along a coastal path down a part of the country which had recently been ravaged by some devastating forest fires – in fact, Highway 1 was all but shut until 12 hours before the boys departed, upon which it miraculously opened to provide a unique impression of the typically beautiful scenery of the Pacific coast, only scarred and sullied by conflagration.
The Big Sur coastline still retained a form of beauty, just one that felt more weary and understated; no doubt the vegetation will grow back and the sun will shine again (MT continued their tradition of bringing the weather with them by caking the surroundings in cloud), but for the moment an ashen stench lingered over the countryside, and many of the hillsides were clearly scorched and lifeless.
What really astounded MT was the sudden appearance of an ‘Oscar Mayer Weiner’ truck, of which there is apparently only one in the whole world, negotiating the harsh bend around the bluff ahead. This vehicle’s uniqueness is not difficult to describe: it is a giant hot dog-shaped car. But here’s a video anyway:
Quickly, radio-broadcasts failed to make it through the rocky peaks and MT were reduced to the garbled mutterings of the BBC World Service. Unable to bear this for much longer they pulled over at a local mini-mart and begged them to sell them whatever CDs they possibly had. On handing over $10 they received Carly Simon’s Greatest Hits, A 50s Megamix and John Meredith on Instrumental Guitar. Predictably, the first two cases proved to be empty leaving MT no choice but to be serenaded by the repetitively awful incarnations of Stairway to Heaven, The Entertainer and Killing Me Softly, all of which that were rendered so badly that Mr Meredith was hastily and unsurreptitiously consigned to the adjacent Pacific.
With Pete proving his sensational driving skills once more by bringing Doug and Nick constantly to the brink of vomiting through his binary use of the brake pedal, particularly when nearly mowing down a steroid taking druggie (cyclist), MT moved on to Santa Barbara, home of the now ubiquitous UCSB, where they found parties and beaches aplenty. There is no point in elaborating on what went on here – merely lots of the usual stuff when MT reaches a college town. Highlights mostly included waking up in the morning alive, and with clothes on, drinking everything under the sun, and appreciating the many beautiful sights of the town, both animate and inanimate. With SB satisfied the last major trip of the tour was about to be undertaken – onward to the City of Angels.
