This entry is part of my plan for NaBloPoMo.

Then – 21 November 1991, Yosemite National Park

Yosemite is absolutely gorgeous. Yesterday I went on a Valley Tour. Yosemite National Park is in the Sierra Nevada mountains which means, if I remember correctly, mountains topped with snow all the time. We saw El Kapitan which is the largest rock (granite) in the world. The valley is 4000 feet above sea level and El Kapitan is about another 4000 feet and it’s enormous.

We saw people climb up it. They only actually looked like dots but the people climbing it take about 3-10 days depending on which way they go. Therefore they have to sleep some time, either on a ledge or suspended on a hammock. I’d be too bloody scared to sleep.

…It’s the first time I’ve ever eaten in a restaurant by myself but I was seated right next to the group I’d met. After we’d all eaten I sat with them and talked for a little bit. ….and I was left with the bus driver [of the tour group]. He asked me if I had a boyfriend, then why didn’t I have a boyfriend because I was kinda cute. I hate it when people ask me that. His tour is going to Los Angeles, like me, and on Saturday they are touring Beverly Hills and Hollywood and he asked me to go along which I will.

Now

I know, I’ve rewound time slightly. I went to Yosemite before I went to Key West and the east coast. I decided to include this one as it was so gorgeous as I mention above. I was captivated by El Kapitan. (Click on photo above to see more of Yosemite).

I only went to Yosemite after a suggestion from some friends I stayed with in San Francisco. It was lonely being in a place like this by myself. It was more suited to the tour groups, couples and families. I had a lovely cottage all to myself though, and it was a bit decadent especially as I was supposed to be backpacking.

I didn’t write in my diary as to why I didn’t end up going with my bus driver but it didn’t feel right, especially as everyone else on the bus would have paid and I would have just been a hanger on. I’m sure it wouldn’t have been above board and another kind of payment might have been expected.

I ended up catching a bus from Yosemite to Merced and getting a cheap hotel room to wait it out there rather than at a bus station for a 4am bus trip to Los Angeles. It wasn’t that far to walk to the bus station which was really stupid of me especially as I got lost. Luckily I found some guys doing up a shop at that time and when they realised I had luggage one of them gave me a lift to the bus station. I made it to Los Angeles safely.

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This entry is part of my plan for NaBloPoMo.

Then – 16 December 1991, Philadelphia to Boston

I’d decided to go to Boston to kill a couple of days before getting to New York. Alex said it was okay to come along with him and Val [I met them both at youth hostel in Philiadelphia] but we were stopping at Poughkeepsie, New York so he could buy a couple of bikes. I thought that would be interesting so I decided to go with them rather than catch the bus.

I imagined Poughkeepsie to be a small town but it was quite large. We arrived after dark and we went straight to where Alex was buying the bike. He buys here and sells them in Germany. The man who was selling the bike wasn’t very friendly. He reminded Val of a squirrel, not the cuteness but just the general look. He was very weedy.

Alex was a fair while buying talking bikes with the squirrel which was pretty boring for Val and I. He eventually finished, and decided to buy the bike but wasn’t picking it up until the next day. Trying to find something to do in Poughkeepsie was hard as it’s a fairly large place and the only places to go out where somewhere called Berties which seemed to mainly consist of young kids. We ended up going to see a new movie called ‘Hook’. The movie was okay but it wasn’t the best I’ve ever seen.

We wanted to go and have a drink afterwards and eventually ended up at a bar which we soon discovered was a gay bar. It was quite coincidental as Val is gay. I should describe him. He’s black, very effeminate, has got sort of cute little dreadlocks, has a round cheerful face and is a bit plump. He likes very much to be the centre of attention and is quite amusing. When we walked into the bar everyone just looked. I felt like I was in a backwater country town where everyone looks at a stranger when they walk in.

… Alex I can’t work out. When I first met him he really smelled awful, like he hadn’t changed his clothes for weeks which he probably hadn’t. I couldn’t figure out his sexual orientation. He and Val seemed to be pretty close so God knows.

… The next day Alex picked up the bike from the squirrel and then the squirrel took us to another guy’s place to get another bike. By the time both bikes were loaded (one in the van and the other on the trailer) we were very loaded up. If the road was bumpy we would bounce up and down a lot. It was fairly slow progress to Boston.

Now

I will always remember this experience because it was quite spontaneous and it was one of those very spontaneous things that turned out to be great fun. It was spontaneous in my mode of transport, not the fact I was going somewhere, although from memory I hadn’t planned on going to Boston. By this stage of my travels in the States I’d met people who were going in the same direction as me but nobody was travelling to the same places at the same time as me. We just had informal arrangements like rough dates, and places of accommodation so we could potentially catch up.

Therefore an offer of a lift was too good to pass up and I really hated travelling on Greyhound. It was also an opportunity to see countryside I probably wouldn’t have otherwise seen. I must have been desperate to get away from Greyhound because I really struggle with people with strong body odour like Alex had. I must have got used to it after a couple of days on the road though, so much so that I even slept in the van with them for that one night in Poughkeepsie.

Poughkeepsie felt really strange for me. It had an unusual vibe and I was quite glad to leave. I didn’t really feel unsafe there, it just wasn’t a place I wanted to hang around in.

Visiting the gay bar was probably the first gay bar I’d ever been in so it was a real eye opener from that perspective.

Overall I did enjoy the short road trip. It was definitely one of those experiences that can make travelling great fun.

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This entry is part of my plan for NaBloPoMo.

Then -  7 December 1991, Key West

My first night in Key West I rang mum. I’d had a bad dream the night before that dad was really sick and I knew something had happened, so I really spun out when mum said she had bad news. Auntie B had died. Apparently she was found dead in a chair. Mum didn’t say what from. She was only about 63.

….The beaches were really horrible in Key West. Fort Zachary was full of rocks and coral where sand should have been. It was painful just trying to go for a swim because of having to step over the rocks, or pebbles I should say.

Now

The above diary entry was written on 7 December 1991, but after I’d left Key West when I was in Orlando.

Auntie B was only 60 when she died of a heart attack, and she’d only recently retired. I didn’t have a lot to do with her which I now regret because I know I could have learnt a lot more from her and had some great conversations. She was a staunch feminist and very intelligent. I know that now I’m older I could appreciate this a lot more than I would have then. She would be 75 now if she were still alive. She died before I started at university and I’m sure she would have been proud of me doing this.

I wrote about the beaches because I had never encountered a rocky beach before. We’re very lucky here with our beaches being pretty clean and mostly sandy. Sometimes we have to contend with seaweed but that rarely overtakes the whole beach – there’s usually some sand to walk or lie on. I also remember lying on a beach in front of a hotel and getting told to move because it belonged to the hotel. What? Beaches are public I thought.

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I saw this blogging for books thing around when the Zero Boss did it and now it’s cropped up again over at Faster than Kudzu. So here’s my try at writing about my experience with the military.

When I was growing up we had guns stashed safely (away from us kids) around the place because dad was a farmer but mum was vigilant about telling us never ever to touch a gun, even going instilling in us that we shouldn’t point a toy gun at anyone. Consequently I grew up with a fear of guns and what they can do to people. I’ve never fired a gun of any lethal description – water pistols are about it for me.

Apart from the odd weapon I saw growing up as a kid I never really had anything to do with guns until I went to Israel in 1993. Israelis have to join the Israel Defence Force when they are 18 and there is a large presence of military over there as I witnessed.

We stayed at a youth hostel in Eilat where there were also a lot of school children. They had soldiers guarding them and it was very strange for me to sit down and eat dinner alongside a table of soldiers with their guns lying on the floor. I knew they wouldn’t use their weapons if it was unnecessary but I still couldn’t relax and would keep glancing over at them and then look down to make sure their weapons were still sitting on the floor.

After a six days trekking in the Sinai Mountains – pretty much gun free – we hired a car to drive to Jerusalem to have a look around the city. I had a turn in driving and along the way a soldier stepped out and waved us down. I thought it was some kind of checkpoint so I pulled over and stopped. It turned out not to be a checkpoint but he just wanted a lift with us. I said, in no uncertain terms, that I did not want that gun in the car, but maybe he could put it in the boot. We ended up not giving him a lift, as there were four of us in the car and would have been very sqashed for everyone in the back. I found out later that hitchhiking is a form of transport for soldiers in Israel and regarded as quite normal.

We stopped at the Dead Sea on the way to Jerusalem and there were yet more school children there who needed guarding. Here’s a picture I took. Note the casualness of the guy leaning on his rifle.

When we were driving back from Jerusalem to Eilat we got two flat tyres simultaneously, in the middle of nowhere. A utility vehicle with four workmen stopped to see if they could help out. We explained that we had a rental car with two flat tyres and only one spare. One of the workmen had a mobile phone and offered to ring up the rental company for us. The phone didn’t work where we were so he explained that we would have to drive up the hill to make the call. I got one of my friends to come with me while he made the call, and arranged for us to go back to Jerusalem and get another car.

We drove back and when we got to the top of the hill and looked down to where our car had broken down there were two other cars that had stopped along with an army jeep with three soldiers circling the area holding their guns. I thought it was a bit extreme as we were only tourists that had broken down and were no threat to anyone.

It turned out that we were in occupied territory and it was a really unsafe area to be in. The car rental person in Eilat had told us to go this way and there was a much safer way to go which we did on the way home after we swapped cars without any mishap. We were able to drive to Jerusalem in our car because the workmen had some tyre stuff that you squirt into the tube so you can drive on the tyre for a little while.

After finding out that we were in occupied territory the presence of the military felt somewhat comforting but until we got into the car to drive away I kept expecting a group of baddies to come over the hill and start shooting at us. I think I’ve watched too many westerns.

I suppose all this highlighted for me the difference between Australia’s and Israel’s political situation. I’m sure it’s a way of life for Israelis and they’re completely used to it and don’t even notice the soldiers standing around with their guns. I’m not sure what the general feeling is of sending your kids to school and having the military guarding them incase something happens. All the same, I’m glad it’s not something we have to contend with here.

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