A few years ago after a short assignment in Los Angeles, me and the missus rented a soft top and made a 3 week road trip through California and Nevada.
With no fixed itinerary we had a rough plan to drive up to San Fransisco along the costal road and then cut across into Nevada and make our way back to L.A. via Las Vegas and Slab City.
Like many Brits in their 40s, my impressions of the States have been formed over many years of watching American films. As a consequence, whenever I'm in the country I often end up on some sort of ridiculous film set pilgrimage or other.
This trip was no exception...
So, I present you the above image that will no doubt be lost on most of you, but for me, it represents the culmination of a long-nurtured dream to visit the small town of Buellton in Santa Barbara County, California… inspired by a mild obsession that I have with the film Sideways.
If you’re still following me, then you may be interested to know that I can report back that the 2006 Highliner, the Hitching Post’s flagship Pinot is wonderfully smooth and velvety with excellent depth…. (holds fingers to ear and squints) …with a soupçon of asparagus… and… um… a flutter of nutty Edam cheese…
Sorry, jokes aside… well worth the 10,000 mile round trip.
Equally worth the journey was the chance to stay in the fantastically old school Windmill Motel in Buellton (apparently unchanged since Sideways was filmed there over 14 years ago) … complete with outdoor jacuzzi, terrible breakfast buffet et al. A snip at just 69 bucks a night.
Needless to say, I was in my element.
As it turned out, we ended up visiting every single set location from the film over a few days, including all the featured wineries and restaurants, and even Solvang, America's very quirky Danish village in which we spent some quality time in a local photographer's studio resulting in this sensational photograph...
Other parts of California revealed some wonderful surprises, like these glorious sand dunes at Mesquite Flat in Death Valley, where the setting sun lays an incredible purple hue on the towering Amargosa Range mountains behind.
Driving around the desert in California and Nevada was excellent fun. Incredibly long straight deserted roads. Remote 1950’s looking service stations with attached brothel (selling UFO paraphernalia at the reception). Intriguing looking trailer parks with a line of fifty mail boxes at the entrance and incredible panoramas that stretched on forever.
Unfortunately we forgot to bring any music with us so those lonely miles were accompanied by the dulcet tones of the local religious radio stations that appear to be the only thing you can pick up in your car around there… Certainly some of the most incredible phone-in shows I’ve ever heard in my life… ever… eerily good at enhancing the whole desert driving experience.
Unusually for Death Valley, famously the hottest place in the world (with recorded temperatures topping 56.6°C)... it actually snowed for 20 minutes while we were driving through it. According to the bar woman in nearby Beatty’s Sour Dough Saloon, it happens every now and then… nothing to write home about actually… "might just about warrant a mention in a blog post".
Here are some more snaps shot with my excellent pocket sized Olympus PEN EP2 which I used on this trip...
Unfortunately, my film nerdiness didn't stop with Sideways... and as with my pilgrimage to Buellton mentioned above, this next section may not connect with that many of you either.
Whilst filming in L.A. just before this trip I discovered to my great surprise and delight, that The Dresden, a fantastic bar in Los Feliz that figures prominently in my favourite bromantic comedy of all time, Swingers… is a real place and not just a film set as I previously suspected.
Upon discovering this, I knew I had to go there… mainly to seek out the truth about Marty and Elayne, the Dresden’s resident lounge Jazz duo who appear briefly in the movie, but also on the off chance that I might find Nikki sat alone at the bar drinking a Martini.
OK, so the Nikki thing was a long shot, but I have to say, we had an awesome night at The Dresden. Like a kid in a sweet shop I was.
Chatting with Marty and Elayne it turns out that amazingly, they have been playing there 5 nights a week for over 35 years… and they certainly show no signs of stopping IMO. Incredible.
The highlight of the night was a vintage rendition of the Bee Gees Staying Alive that they dedicated to yours truly, something that I tried to capture on my EP2 with limited success… So, for all you Swingers fans out there… here it is…
WARNING! Epic keyboard solo starts at 2:07 … not for the faint hearted.
(Sorry for the terrible focusing… and occasional strange noise interference over some of the clip… that was me using the vertical view finder after a few too many Margaritas… and breathing into the mike!
So, in the end we never made it up the coastal road to San Fransisco which was blocked by a landslide. Neither did we get to visit Slab City, stopping instead at Joshua Tree.
Nevertheless, it was a brilliant road trip that we still talk about to this day.
The next time we get the chance, we want to do a similar trip through the southern States.
Hopefully then, I'll finally get to fulfill another lifelong dream and visit Southfork Ranch
Only joking.