View Full Version : Timmy Topanga: Otei's So-Cal Adventure.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/chasingsunset.jpg
Well I'm finally here. After a lengthy 11 Hour flight that included the weird sensation of chasing the sunset across the timezones, demonstrated by the photo above, I arrived at LAX.
The first thing that struck me was how friendly and efficient the airport check in staff are compared to the sour faced majority at Heathrow, asking you if you were ok, and generally having a very pleasant demeanour. Bear in mind that this is a country that has more reason than any other to be highly suspicious of anyone stepping on or off of a plane!
Amy drove me home to Topanga in her rather large Toyota Tacoma truck at about 90mph, bumper to bumper with all of the other crazy dudes in L.A
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/crazydrivehome.jpg
It was dark when we got through the driveway, but the Eucalyptus trees could be smelt as we drove up to the apartment. Topanga is a real hippy canyon area that has quite a history of being home to musicians and artists and all sorts of freaky beatnik types ,daddio. Jim Morrison of The doors fame used to jam here maaaaan!...far out.
I had done my best to try and stay awake on the flight, watching loads of movies from the huge choice that Virgin Atlantic offer (great airline) and only nodded off for about half an hour. When I finally got to bed, it was pretty much like my normal bedtime of 12 midnight, but in Uk time, I'd been up for 24 hours. I was still buzzin' though and demanded to go and get a Taco bell and a huge 40 oz beer, as it was someting I'd wanted to try for ages.
we stopped at a gas station to fill up the truck and a woman pulled up in a black VW beetle of the modern shaped variety. I swear she'd had her hair cut to match the car, shaved down the sides and back with a big bubble of jet black hair on top. I didn't have the balls to take a pic, she looked like she had the propensity to carry dirty Harry's Magnum in her purse. V.Funny.
When I woke up this morning, I got quite a view. The views out of the apartment are lovely, and there are some of the hugest, spiky, alien lookin' plantlife you ever did see. The bloke upstairs has hummingbird feeders hanging on his veranda, I kid you not!
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/driveway.jpg
View up the driveway through the Eucalyptus trees.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/alienbushes2.jpg
We'll be taking Amy's R6 that I'll be riding to the bike shop to have some suspension and brakes work done on it today, then to be honest I don't know what we'll be getting up to as she has to go to work at some point, but there's certainly no shortage of stuff to do.
I think I'll borrow her RSV Mille and check out the canyon roads. WOOOT!
Take it easy peeps, I'll update as soon as I can.
Otei.
****!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
;)
you can really go off some people can't ya
Tim, all I have to say is ... you're short and your breath stinks ... or something.
Jammy mutha(*&^£(%*^)($£*^09*^£($*^%£(*^%)(^£)*^%£)*£^%w"^%"(*&£*&$%)£()^^%(w$£)"&^$_(£"&%_£"($^_%(*^"%_(*"^+$"^_(*^!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tonio600
28-Nov-2006, 21:17
So you're off to the States to have an R6 set up? I don't get it :lol:
Yeah, It's a long way to come to get some suspension work, but you have to justify it to the accountants somehow! ;)
We were in the shop, and there was this hispanic looking guy talking to the shop owner, Andy. Andy was blathering on about how they'd sorted his footrests and stuff so that he was comfortable, and that he'd be doing at least 100mph when he went off the cliff.
I had a little giggle until they started talking about his parachute getting in the way.....
Turns out he's some sort of stuntrider (one whose been eating too many mexican disco beans i think) and that he IS going to ride his bike off a cliff and jump off with his parachute for some sort of video.
This is my first day here ferchrissakkes!
:lol: :lol:
You lucky, lucky sod, I'm soooo jealous :( Go ride the roads round there, we had an amazing day out, haeding off from a mates in Van Nuys, we went up 'Stunt Road', eventually ending up down on the coast at a fantastic sea food place :) Go to 'The Rock Store' over the weekend too if you're nearby, great bike meet and Jay Leno tends to turn up in one of his strange vehicles.
'Tis a fantastic place, try not to have too much fun ;)
I got to Skype to the Otter (private joke) this afternoon, and just when you thought you couldn't dislike ('be jealous of') him any less - I discovered you can!!
Sounds like the bastid is loving it - git!
Going out on Amy's RSV today to 'survey' the local area.
Anyway I won't spoil it for him, I'll let him keep us up to date with his little adventure.
Otei, you smell!!!!!!!!!! ;)
Grib,
Tooooooo weird, I have literally, and I do mean literally just come back from driving around the area(took the truck as it really was too windy for the bike today), and stopped off at that very point where the bikes are parked up in your pic, just off Stunt Rd. I even took a pic of the sign. I'll post some stuff up ina bit when I've uploaded the pics.
Dom,
Was good to talk to ya mate, seriously! ;)
tim
just shut up:mad:
we aint missing you
not at all:p
So then, day 2.
Well actually, day 1 wasn't quite over when I finished my last report. I'd been working on Amy's CBR 400 all day (exaggeration, more like a couple of hours) and also helped the new neighbour, Del move in. Del is a middle aged woman, and didn't turn up in a bright yellow Robin Reliant trying to sell me knock off plates from the Royal wedding of 1981.
Now there is a serious amount of steep steps to negotiate to get to the apartments, and after a singular trip up the steps, poor Del looked knackered. So I downed tools and helped her carry all of her belongings up the stairs, further enhancing the smooth, gentlemanly nature of the British bloke along the way!
Later that evening, as I was boasting to myself and the cats that jet lag was all bullcheese and that I was fine, I woke up having lost a good hour and a half of time. Amy returned from work and refused to believe that the reason for that was that I'd been abducted by Aliens (although we both saw something very strange along those lines on the way back from LAX that freaked us out a touch).
Thinking that I was going to just continue my sleepyness was a mikstake. Amy cajoled me into taking a night cruise on Mulholland drive, as it was a clear (but cold) night, and you'd be able to se the city really clearly. So I tried not to fall down the steep steps and we hightailed it into the L.A night.
I simply cannot tell you how mind bogglingly gigantic this place is. It just goes on forever, and the view over Hollywood and the surrounding areas was breathtaking. The night pics don't really do it justice, but it was pretty cool, trusrt me.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Topanga%20day%202/Mullhollanddrivenightview.jpg
Huuuuuuuuuge!!!
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Topanga%20day%202/TimmyatMullholland.jpg
Whaaat?..who, why?..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
Day 2. Wednesday 29th Nov.
Woke up pretty early, and Amy had to go off to work, so I had a good chinwag on Skype with Dom, which was cool.
It was seriously, seriously windy..and I was beginning to wonder if a tornado would pop up outside the window. stupid I know, because it isn't this part of the U.S that gets them. It just turned so quickly that it really seemed that way.
After a bit, Amy turned up at the house looking all stressed out. Turned out that traffic was so bad that she'd given up, and would go to work later. Definitley the worst thing about L.A.
In the meantime, we decided to take a drive out on some of the canyon roads, including the brilliantly named Stunt Rd that Grib mentioned earlier, which must be where that crazy Hispanic dude lives. He's certainly got a large selection of cliffs to ride off if that's his gameplan.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Topanga%20day%202/Stuntrdsign.jpg
I drove as we were rounding the twisty canyon roads, and once Amy had assured herself that I was a decent enough driver not to have us off the edge of a cliff (at least not without borrowing some Mexican parachutes from the jumping beaner first), then she relaxed and started to take some video footage. I'm hoping to have some of this up online soon, along with her narrative that says "Timmy is obviously getting more confident, 'cos we're goin' a damn sight faster now!". He He!
It was all I could do to stand up straight for the pics to be taken, but I stood there like a trooper and put up with the dull views over Simi valey on one side, and the pacific on the other. So tedious.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Topanga%20day%202/ViewoverSimiValley.jpg
"My balls are freezing, hurry up!" This is stood in the exact spot that Grib's pic was taken bythe way!
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Topanga%20day%202/Simivalleypacificview.jpg
View of the Pacific Ocean. Awesome.
I don't think I'll get up to much today. I was gonna take the RSV out, but the wind is awful, and it blows lots of debris onto the roads apparently, so I'll leave that for another day.
Toodle pip,
Otei.
Huuuuuuuuuge!!!
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Topanga%20day%202/TimmyatMullholland.jpg
A huge ****!!!!!
:lol: :lol: :lol:
I definately USED to like you ;)
Oh, and I suppose I had better say... I hope you're having a nice time - I'm so happy for you etc blah
;)
I had better say... I hope you're having a nice time - I'm so happy for you
Try not to get a haemoroid (how DO you spell that?) whilst you're straining to say that through gritted teeth though.
:D
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Topanga%20day%202/Mullhollanddrivenightview.jpg
i think ur telling porkies... thats Canary Wharf dude... look! theres my office!
couchcommando
30-Nov-2006, 12:19
Stunt Road, that's one of the roads we rode up in March as you know when the locals leant us a bike and took us for a ride in the hills ;)
TBH the place is awesome and the locals are great people.
If you're anywhere near the Suzuki Dealer in Van Nuys go say hello to Pra he was one of the guys who looked after us so well :), owns the place rides a Busa.
We killed a squirrell on Stunt Road, the might of the SV1000 with us two lumps on board was too much for it, is it's little, squished body still there? :(
A squished squirrel?
Oh, you mean Nutty McNuts, the stunt squirrel. You didn't kill him. As it turns out, you did him a favour.
After his close encounter with your SV, he realised that he was very much cut out for a life of danger and intrigue. David Hasselhoff hooked him up with a Moldavian circus troupe, and he's achieved such fame for his legendary stunting, that they've even given him his own game. Check it out:
http://cybergamez.us/freeonlinegames/nuttymcnuts.htm
i think ur telling porkies... thats Canary Wharf dude... look! theres my office!
There's nothing that gets past you is there troutster!
I admit it..it's true.
The other pics are skegness and Hull.
A squished squirrel?
Oh, you mean Nutty McNuts, the stunt squirrel. You didn't kill him. As it turns out, you did him a favour.
:lol: :D
Day 3
The weather was much better today, so i decided to take the RSV for a Canyon run. The only problem was that Amy runs a race shift on her bikes, and had got some rearsets on the Aprilia that you couldn't just turn the linkage round on. So I found the original rearset for the gearshift side...which was in pieces, with the rod that keeps the footrest on the assembly missing. I bodged it together with various borrowed bits from other boxes, and generally made it ready to be ridden my a dopey Brit.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Topanga%20day%203/TimandMillestanding.jpg
Now the driveway that leads to the main canyon road outside Amy's place is a bit of a dodgy affair, with sand and gravel mixed in large quantities and a nice uphill exit on a blind bend. I rolled up to the exit, gave the big twin a whiff of throttle, and promptly stalled it right in the middle of the road. EEEEEEEEEeeep! I thumbed the starter and wheelied it up the road in my haste to get out of the way of any traffic.
The Canyon roads are crazy, and to be honest, they're a bit much for a big bike with very worn tyres, so cornering wasn't the smoothest at times. The bloody great big orange blocks masqeurading as some sort of cat's eyes that stick up out of the road next to the centre lines weren't much help either and had the bike twitching about on more than one occasion.
I stopped off in Topanga itself on the way back and found a store that sold postcards. Having parked the Mille up at an eaterie, I sat and wrote a few out. The best one was to a mate called Steve, and it simply said "You're a girl, you're a girl, you're a great big girl...flip ya!" How's that for random? I then went to the post office and annoyed the woman behind the counter by paying for 6 stamps with a $50 note. I just informed her that I was a stupid tourist and she reached behind the counter, pulled out a Mack 10 and sprayed the whole of the post office interior with hot lead. Fortunately I had my trusty Roof lid in my hand and I was able to put it on and escape injury.Before I found the store with the postcards, I looked elsewhere. There was this guy in a little hippy gift shop, and when i asked if he had any postcards, you'd have thought I'd asked him for boil in the bag cat s h i t. I think he runs the restaurant next door that we're off to tonight, I hope he remembers me.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Topanga%20day%203/Milleinparkingspace.jpg
Amongst the hippy shops, spiritualist healers and yeti impersonators, I found a really cool little mountainbike shop. There was one bike that was so trick that I forgot to take a picture of it. I'll try and get one another day..It was Phat, er..yo!
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Topanga%20day%203/Topangaroad.jpg
There was a group of Mexican guys hanging outside this supermarket type dealio, and it was called "Abuellitas". Now as far as I recall, that means "Grandma" in Spanish, so I was surprised to find a bunch of Chinese guys running the place and this funky basketball lovers truck outside. It either basketball or Oranges...Hmmm!
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Topanga%20day%203/ballerwagon.jpg
Speaking of Mexico, we're off on a cruise around the Gulf of Mexico tomorrow, but I should be able to have internet access on the ship, just in case i find a Titty twister bar full of vampires in one of the ports we stop off at..because I just know you're gonna want to hear all about that!
Hasta la Vista, Gringo's,
Otei.
Turns out that I won't have internet access on the ship, so you may get a welcome break from my ramblings for a week....but only if I can't find an internet cafe...be warned!
:)
Turns out that I won't have internet access on the ship, so you may get a welcome break from my ramblings for a week...
Woooooooooooooooooo Hooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank god for that...
.but only if I can't find an internet cafe...be warned!
:)
Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiite :(
:frog:
;)
Turns out that there is access on the ship, which is cool, but at 75 cents a minute, there's no way I'll be putting up huge reports, I'lll just write them on the PC and copy and paste them when I get back to Topanga.
It's been a weird one so far. There are very typical cruise people on board, and I think we'll have to use them to amuse ourselves if we're to survive the journey.
We're off to swim with Dolphins tomorrow, which should be awesome...I hope. I pray they don't just stick us in a swimming pool with some 900 year old, barnacle ridden old mullets.
No vampires as yet, only the ones that try to suck your mojo, like Dom...green eyed little turnip that he is ! ;)
I slept like a log last night, I haven't slept like that since I arrived in the States, but to be honest, It's been ok really.
Right then, must dash, I'll have lots of pix and stuff to post when I get back to the States.
Cheers,
Tim :)
P.S: Dom, eat my ass.
I slept like a log last night
Wake up in the fireplace did we?
P.S: Dom, eat my ass.
(((((((BIG HUGS!!!!!)))))))
:frog:
Today was absolutley hilarious,
We weren't allowed to stroke the dolphins on the nose, but I accidentally ****ted one on it anyway. It didn't let me get away with it though, and it smacked me in the ******** with it's tail as it swam past. V funny.
Really cool day, got asked by so many "jewellery" sellers if we wanted weed, or cocaine. In the end we just told them that we had loads, said we were having a party, then invited them, It was hysterical to see their faces. This was after we'd had the biggest glass of Margherita you have ever seen in your life. We were hammered. :)
Can't wait for tomorrow.
Cheers,
Tim :)
OK,
So we found an internet cafe in Mazatlan. Not as huge Margheritas as in Cabo San Lucas, but ok nonetheless.
Went for a little taxicab ride with a guy named Gustavo, pretty cool guy, we went up to the lighthouse (too hot for climbing!) and then watched some ejit jump off a cliff into a few feet of water. Me and Amy are confident we could have done the same thing though, it wasnt that impressive. The best bit was buying a batman kite sort of thing. (Don´t ask, I´ll explain later, we´re both slightly toasted and looking for more booze as I speak..how´s my spelling?)
Have taken huge amounts of pix, there are some really cool buildings here, but its a strange mix of delapidated and rebuilt. We simply cannot work out why some of the buildings are in ruins and some are brand new right next door. The whole place must be going through a phase of money influx from tourism, but I thought Mazatlan had been a tourist spot for years. Weird.
Have some great stories to tell of capers on and off ship, but they´ll be relegated to my usually huge reports with pics that simply cannot fit on here, even at one dollar for an hour.
Tequila is a more important thing to find right now.
Adios,
Otei :)
...I thought Matalan had been a tourist spot for years. Weird.
I thought it was an inexpensive clothing boutique!!
You poor northerners are easily pleased. Tourist spot my arse!
:lol:
Adios,
Otei :)
:frog:
Right then, back from Mexico. Here are the reports:
Day 1. San Diego and cruise launch:
So then, the day of our cruise to Mexico.
We had to drive a couple of hours to San Diego (which in German, means “A whale’s vagina”). The drive was pretty cool, It’s amazing how quickly time goes when you’re not in your own country with the miserable weather bringing you down. The weather was much more like Southern Cali weather, in the mid 70’s and was lovely.
Sadly, the highlight of the freeway journey for me was seeing a big yellow Hummer..no really, It was. I’ve always wanted to see one in real life. They’re not as gigantic as they look in films, but I think it’s safe to say that you wouldn’t want to play a head on game of chicken with one, not unless you were Ben Grimm from the Fantastic four anyway.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Mexico%20cruise%20day%201/P1010007.jpg
When we got to San Diego, we found a park and ride that we’d booked for the week. Four quid a day isn’t bad I guess. We had our luggage loaded onto the van by a pony tailed dude that looked like he had just stepped out of the Woodstock festival. His knowledge of the local breakfasts seemed to be almost encyclopedic. Now the reason he had been asked about this, was that there was a highly intelligent guy sat next to him along with several others that were going on the cruise. He was to provide us with one of several highly amusing “American” moments that were to come.
The brainiac in the front passenger seat asked which park and ride lot we had come from. The ponytailed geezer told him that it was number 4. Holding his hand up, the Mensa candidate blurted “So that’s one hand, four fingers, without the thumb!”. Genius.
Shortly after, the nobel prize laureate in the back seat inquired for directions on how to get to the car park that he had already successfully navigated his way to, and that we had just left.
We got dropped off at the check in and after being ****ed about by a couple of clueless buggers that didn’t actually know where we were supposed to be going, we got our baggage onto a cart and into the ship. When we went to check in, we were stood in a queue of people. I looked behind me, and there was a young boy in a sailors hat. “Alright, Sailor!” I chirped at him. “How did you know his name” said his confused Mother. His father then confirmed that it was in fact his name. Having gotten over the fact that someone would actually name their son that and not expect them to be beaten daily at school, I asked them if they wanted me to do any more psychic stuff for 5 bucks a pop.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Mexico%20cruise%20day%201/P1010011.jpg
As we were waiting in line to check in, I decided to nip off to use the toilet. As I was in there, A guy was holding his dick in one hand, and his mobile in the other. Talking about doing deals on the stock market. I guess business doesn’t even wait for the call of nature. He should be careful though, his train of thought might wander one day and he might end up buying into a different kind of flotation.
We smuggled our sandwiches and Budweiser on board and sat in our State room, waiting for the boat to sail.
There was no way we were going to be allowed to get away with that though, and an announcement came over the tannoy that in 15 minutes time, there would be a practice drill for emergency evacuation. We were instructed that we would need to don our life jackets, which I found difficult to the point where I would probably have drowned if it had been a real emergency. We all waddled down the aisles like embarrassed florescent orange penguins and mustered at our, erm...muster point. We were then lined up outside under the lifeboats and suffered the ignominy of the occupants of the cruise ship opposite laughing and taking photos of us all lined up like berks. marvelous.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Mexico%20cruise%20day%201/IMG_0007.jpg
We headed out of port and the band started playing on the top deck. It was pretty special, and San Diego looked spectacular at night as we drifted slowly away from it.
We got a beer and a bite to eat, then started to explore the ship and its facilities. You can imagine how happy I was when I came across an old skool Galaga and Pac Man machine in the arcade, I envisage spending many happy, ****ed up hours there growling at annoying American children. Superb!
The rest of the ship is spectacular, with a Casino, Theatre, Cinema, Library, online access, a Bank, Gymnasium, Spa, massage centre, hairdressers and more bars and restaurants than you can shake a stick at. Quite mind boggling, and I simply cannot imagine the level of logistics involved in keeping this thing stocked up and maintained.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Mexico%20cruise%20day%201/P1010028-1.jpg
We got an idea of just what is involved in running a ship like this when we went to dinner that evening. Each couple that walked through the door was assigned a steward to escort them to their table, and there were waiters of all different types running around in a barely synchronized ballet, with trays just missing heads left right and centre.
Unfortunately, we managed to be seated on a table next to Mr and Mrs. Snoozington, from Dullsville, America. The conversation with our wine waiter was far more stimulating, and Amy and I indulged in a little game that we created, whereby we have to guess the sexual preferences of a certain individual. We labeled this pastime “RUG”
Antonio, our wine waiter was, let’s say...very enthusiastic, with a superbly maintained mustache. For me, the mustache was reason enough to give him a resounding yes vote in the RUG game, Amy wasn’t so sure. She also wasn’t certain what his accent was, so I told her that he was from Portugal. “Are you sure ?”, said Amy with a surprised look on her grill. “Why don’t you ask him?” I said, and bet her the cost of the expensive bottle of wine that I was right.
It was only as the words slipped from her mouth that she instantly noticed his name badge, with “Portugal” in large black letters underneath it. HA!, Hilarious!...chalk one up to the Otei.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Mexico%20cruise%20day%201/P1010032.jpg
We went back to the cabin, but before we did, Amy wanted to go and have a look outside. We peered over the side and I instantly felt really weird, just looking at the dark, brooding expanse of open ocean. Hmmm, chalk one up to the Sea. I went to sleep.
Day 2: At Sea.
I can’t believe how much I slept, the weird couple at the dinner table must have slipped something in my wine, or maybe there was something in the revolting orange and apple soup that they mistakenly served me.
Whatever the case, I woke up at 10:30, which was effectively 9:30 as we had moved our clocks forward an hour to take the time zone into account.
Food is served all day long here, and considering that, I’m surprised that there aren’t more of the overly obese Yanks that you tend to see so much of. Still, there’s plenty of time for that to happen. Maybe this is where fat Americans are created, on a floating Calorie farm in the Pacific Ocean.
It’s easy to get disoriented when you’re at sea and on such a huge ship, even for an experienced Mariner like myself (I once owned an inflatable Dinghy on holiday in Malta, when I was aged 4). I woke up, looked out of the cabin window and said to Amy, Wow, with the effect of the water turbulence, it feels like we’re going sideways. “No sweetie”, she replied, “we’re at the Butt of the boat”, and so we were...Doh!
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Mexico%20cruise%20day%202/P1010001.jpg
We stepped out for breakfast as I was still waking up and joined the line of people spoiled for choice as to their brekky. I decided to have some scrambled eggs and bacon, and some fresh fruit. Amy thought the scrambled eggs were cheese potatoes, but then she’s not very bright.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Mexico%20cruise%20day%202/P1010004.jpg
We went downstairs and I logged on to the internet, only to find Dom being his usual facetious little self on the DD forum, but put it down to immense jealousy and carried on regardless. we checked out the cigarettes, which worked out at an unbelievable eight quid for 200. I haven’t made my mind up yet whether to bring any back, as I’ll get taxed on them if I get searched and it might not be worthwhile. Whatever, I don’t smoke anyway.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Mexico%20cruise%20day%202/P1010003.jpg
After a difficult bit of self motivation, we went to the gym. It seemed just like normal, as there was the same equipment that i use at home. The weirder thing, was that when i’m using the cross trainers in my local gym, the swimming pool is directly below and in front of me through the glass windows. The swimming pool was somewhat larger this time, and contained whales and dolphins. It didn’t seem quite right that I was moving in a forwards motion, but that the vessel was plowing along to the left. Very Odd.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Mexico%20cruise%20day%202/IMG_0027.jpg
We went to dinner again (this time it was formal night and time to dress like gangsters!), and sure enough, we were seated next to the dull couple again. We had already devised a cunning plan to amuse ourselves by pretending to be Alpaca farmers, and listing a host of disgusting facts about these camel/llama looking critters, including the fact that their hooves were used in the very desert that one or both of them might be eating. Tragically, they both came out of their shells and proved to be decent enough, if not scintillating characters. Therefore, the Alpaca story was put on hold.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Mexico%20cruise%20day%202/IMG_0051.jpg
We got a little toasted and had our pictures taken by a South African photographer who was a pretty cool guy, and seemed to know what he was doing..to the point of arranging us so that you couldn’t see where Amy had spilled salmon down her dress, the klutz.
We retired to the cabin to catch some zeds, but were awoken at around 1 am by what surely must have been the back of the boat disintegrating. We absolutely shat ourselves, but I have to say that I was out of bed so fast and ready to get into a life jacket, that my previously awful practice attempt at saving my own skin seemed like a distant memory. After half an hour or so, our heart rates slowed below 150 and we managed to get to sleep, after all, there were dolphins awaiting our arrival in Cabo San Lucas in a few hours time.
Hummers??
Pah, you didnt need to fly all that way Timmy, you could have just popped up to 'lil ole Woking and seen the 2 in Dukes Court front car park.:p
The company (THQ) uses them for advertising the latest 'puter games:D and the staff take it in turns to use them as 'pool' cars
Day 3: Cabo San Lucas:
We waited to get a sticker, then we were called to line up and wait for our tenders.
Tenders are also known in other situations, as “lifeboats”. That’s right, we were going to have to get to the land, via another little boat. I hadn’t been too keen on this idea, as I’m not too keen on boats in general (I know, i know, I’m on a bloody cruise!). However, once we’d waited in line for what seemed like an hour, we finally got onto our little vessel. It was pretty cool seeing the giant cruise liner disappear behind us, and I really did get a feeling of what Captain Bligh felt like as Fletcher Christian and the other Mutineers s******ed and waved at them as they were cast adrift. Fortunately though, we had an advantage over Captain bligh and his crew, an engine..and a bloke to steer the boat...and a wallet full of dollars. Yeehaaa!
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We came in to moor at cabo San Lucas, and there were Pelicans everywhere, and it was an awesome sight to see them in the wild, not in some zoo or bird sanctuary.
After being greeted by a couple of fake pirates, we trotted off in the direction of the dolphin centre, which had numerous real pirates trying to sell jewelry and other such trinkets. this would turn out to be a major source of mirth later in the day.
We were guided to the dolphin centre and after receiving wristbands that were similar to a track day, we were then required to sign a waiver..er..just like a track day. I was wondering if we were going to be racing these dolphins or something. turns out that it wasn’t too far from the truth.
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We had ben told by the instructors not to touch their heads and faces (although Amy managed to touch some faeces as ours swam by..yuk!), but as the dolphin was circling us, I accidentally smacked it in the face whilst trying to maneuver myself in the pool. I had a feeling it wouldn’t let me get away with it, and I was right. A little later it swam past me and flicked me in the knackers with its tail. B a s t a r d.
In all seriousness though, the whole thing was incredible, and every bit as good as I had imagined it would be. The highlight was the belly ride, where the dolphin laid on its back, you grabbed its pectoral fins and it motored off around the pool as you tried to wipe the inane grin from your face. Typically, being a racer, I asked if it could go any faster, but it seems you have to tuna dolphin to get any more power out of it *Badoom, Tssshk!”
We bought some pics and a DVD, and in all fairness, the pics and especially the DVD were highly impressive given the 10 minutes they had to edit it and create it. Very good indeed my Mexican Spielberg wannabes.
We didn’t have to be back at the boat for a while, so we wandered round the front to grab a bite to eat. Every few yards, we would be accosted by jewelry sellers, but we must have looked slightly “street” as most of them would also mutter “want some weed?” or “wanna get high?”...”Cocaine?” Personally, I put it down to Amy’s tattoos and several Mexican guys shouted “Hey, do you wanna know where the tattoo shop is?”
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On the way back to the boat later on, we had gotten tired of being asked if we wanted any gear, so when one young lad asked us again, I told him we had loads of drugs, that we were gonna have a crazy party and that he was invited. His face was a picture, it went from streetwise young geezer, to shocked and surprised teenager faster than you could say “ 2 loopy Gringos”. Quality.
In-between amusing ourselves with the local drug dealers, we went and had a bit to eat at a place called Margaritavilla. We had some quesadillas and some fajitas, but the decisive factor was the huge, and I do mean quite titanic Margaritas that we were served. They were like buckets, I s h i t you not. We were pretty toasted after these, so we staggered around the little town for a while taking pics.
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The trip back to the boat was as cool as the trip away from it, and I took a bit of video, whilst simultaneously taking the **** out of a group of Canadians in a South Park style.
We had booked a massage each before we left, so we got our asses in gear and went to check that out. We had a very nice, tiny little South African chick called Riki doing our treatments, and although she was small, she could suck like an experienced hooke...I mean, her massage pressure was impressive to say the least.
The day was flying by, and it was time to head to dinner once again, with our mildly less dull friends. The boat was pitching about quite a bit and the lightweight majority had stayed away from any intake of food aboard this floating roller coaster. This included Gerry, the wife of our dining table partner, David. He seemed less uptight when she wasn’t around, I can’t imagine why that might be, as her whiny, nasally tones had endeared her to us no end.
He asked how our day with the dolphins had gone, and we both broke straight faced into a yarn about how a woman in our group had gotten in the way of one of the dolphins and been knocked unconscious by its tail as it splashed out of the water. I added that we thought her teeth had been knocked into the water, but that it was just pieces of polystyrene from her flotation vest. I also tacked on the fact that the Mexican trainer had been in floods of tears. Amy assisted ably, and we managed it without cracking up.
Ironically, David then told us how their son had fallen over and knocked his teeth backwards, requiring a trip to the local dentist in the process. Irony?, or was David smarter than he looked and giving us a bulls h i t rebuttal? We’ll never know I guess,.
The previous day, we had ordered a bottle of wine to go with our meal, which was served to us by Antonio our wine waiter, who was a real character and a sterling bloke. Amy had done some wine tasting previously, and did a thoroughly convincing impersonation of someone that knows what the hell they’re talking about when it comes to drinking wine. She slooshed it around in the glass, then stuck her beak in it and had a good whiff before finally tasting it and proclaiming it fit for consumption. I took the **** a bit and she told me that if she hadn’t liked it, she could have sent it back. The next night however, was a different story. Once again, our resident wine swiller sloshed the claret around, gave it a quick snort, but didn’t look too impressed. Antonio, said that we would try to find something with a bit more body about it for the next night, and promptly hightailed it. I laughed my ass off and said “Well so much for sending it back then!”
After a few more drinks we were even less impressed than when we first started, and this really shouldn’t have been the case, as everyone knows that it doesn’t matter what you drink when you’re already ****ed. I collared Antonio and asked him what the point of swilling the booze around and sniffing it like a bunch of daisies, then having a thimble full if you couldn’t send it back if you didn’t like it?
He looked a little stumped for a second, then, like the true professional he is, he explained that it wasn’t really anything to do with the taste of the wine, more to ensure that the wine was in good condition. I told him that I was no wine expert, but that I really didn’t think that this was a $48 bottle of wine, in anybody’s language. There was a good glassful left that we’d attempted to palm off on David, but he wasn’t having any of it either, so i asked Antonio if he was able to taste it for us.
I wasn’t sure if he’d be allowed to drink on duty, but to my immense surprise and incredible amusement, he stood upright and boldly stated “Of course Sir, that is why I carry this!” and proceeded to pull out the biggest Hip hop looking chain, which had what can only be described as a silver plated, shallow ladle without the handle, attached to the chunky ghetto necktie. He put a Portuguese sized portion in his pimpin’ metal booze pouch, and gave it a swill. His face started to look like a bulldog that had licked some **** of a stinging nettle, and eventually declared that it really shouldn’t taste like that. Amy looked very pleased with herself. good skills, wino.
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Antonio, who we now very aptly named Flava Flave, promised to give us a free bottle of wine for the next evening, which was certainly mission accomplished, and without having disrespected the guy in any way shape or form. We staggered around the sloshing ship before retiring to bed, safe in the knowledge that we couldn’t have had much more fun that day if we’d had the entire Monty Python team as our tour guides.
Pah, you didnt need to fly all that way Timmy, you could have just popped up to 'lil ole Woking and seen the 2 in Dukes Court front car park
B u g g e r!
I wasted all that money then. That'll teach me :D
Day 4: Mazatlan:
Initially we’d arranged to go on a walking tour around the streets of Mazatlan. This, however, would have involved tagging along with snail paced, geriatric coffin dodgers. Having had second thoughts about this, Amy decided to see if she could cancel the tour without losing our money. Imagine our delight when the very efficient Monica managed to sell our tickets on and refund us the equivalent of several long island ice teas, which we can highly recommend as brain cell killers.
So then, somewhat novelly, we were actually attached to a dock this day. Having disembarked on shank’s pony, we discovered that it was at least three miles into the old part of town and a further two into the new sector. We really weren’t interested in the new sector and wanted to see the old part of town and some of the attractions that were being hawked by the so-called “tourist information guides”. It seems that everyone you talk to has an angle of some sort and something to sell. Having eventually decided to walk to the main attractions on our own after spending a good 5-10 minutes talking with one of the taxi drivers, we realized that after approximately 300 yards the day’s temperatures would kill us quicker than a dose of ebola in a fast forward time machine.
We skulked back to the taxi driver and hoped that the $30 fee for the 1 1/2 hour that we had already negotiated after we got our independent heads on still stood. Fortunately it did and Gustavo, our particularly fluent english-speaking driver, started to take us on a mini-tour of places we wished to visit.
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It turned out that Gustavo had experienced living in LA at some point, which is why his driving skills in heavy traffic were up to the mark. We arrived at our first destination, which Gustavo proudly told us, was the second tallest natural lighthouse in the world. His tour guide skills didn’t extend to knowing which was the tallest, but this could have been due to the fact that his brain was overpowered by the sublime stench that was emanating from the sewage plant inconveniently located directly next door.
We knew we were limited with time, but Amy seemed to think the clock was ticking faster and started making her way up the rocky slopes like some demented, tattooed, sweaty mountain goat. I attempted to excuse my utter lack of fitness on the fact that I was carrying the rucksack, which she rebutted, and took all of the wind out of my sails by saying that I could wait where we were and she would run the rest of the way. The fackin’ head case.
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Fortunately, and much to my relief, about 3/4 of the way up, she saw sense and decided that even though we’d seen a 90 year-old-man jog past us on the way down, that time was of the essence, and we’d head back after taking a couple of photos. Gustavo was highly impressed when we lied through our teeth and nodded furiously when he asked if we’d reached the top, accompanied by a resounding “Yep” from Amy.
Next stop was a lookout point that viewed the lighthouse that we had so unsuccessfully managed to scale. For me this wasn’t a surprise, but what was a surprise, was that a guy who was selling masks, and that was old enough to be our great-grandfather, propositioned us with the supply of some “good good cheeba”, once again!
After this, we pulled up alongside a statue of a guy on a motorcycle. It turned out, after we had totally disrespected his memory by taking comedy pillion rides on his monument, that he was Mexico’s equivalent of Elvis Presely. His name was Peter Infante and he was a famous movie star and singer who died in a plane crash. Gustavo told us that he loved motorcycles and had starred in many movies featuring motorcycles, which was good enough for us motorheads.Reeespect, Mr Infante.
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Gustavo was then slick enough to take us to a shop that served free margaritas, which was good skills x10 from our articulate human broom faced dude. After quaffing a couple of these, we scurried off to what was in our minds, the extreme sports event of the day, the cliff diver. Gustavo proudly trumpeted the fact that this daredevil beaner was going to jump 45’ from a cliff into just 6’ of water. After the free booze, this sounded quite impressive, and we laid out $5 to watch our superhero perform. After a short period, our man clambered his way onto the precipice, saluting the crowd, and possibly praising Jesus, before belly flopping into the frothing waters below. It was impressive enough, but I do believe that I’d rather have had another margarita for the money and tried it myself.
Amazingly before this X games marvel, our time had already expired with Gustavo. We had already said our good-byes before the cliff diver and taken a few photos, one of which was of an intriguing red gate that covered a cave that wound its way into the cliff face a good 30’. There was a metal devil’s head on top of the gate and the word “iablo” (missing D) on top of a pitchfork. Amy took a photo with flash into the deep recesses of the cave, and it was only when we downloaded it to the laptop later that amongst the beer cans and other assorted litter we saw lucifer himself mocking our blindness.
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We then worked our way back through town in search of margaritas the size of fishbowls. Tragically, it would appear that one would have to go into the new part of town to find these and we had to settle for several more smaller versions. We zigzagged our way through the back streets, managing to discover the real Mazatlan and being fortunate enough to get photos of the huge contrasts that a tour guide would never wish to show you.
We stopped off at an internet cafe to see what gems Dom had come up with, and it has to be said he didn’t disappoint. We then made our way back to tequila central and had some more margaritas with some nachos. By this time, we were completely fooked and mozied back to the ship.
We crashed out for a bit. Amy went to the gym and I just slobbed it out on a sun lounger next to the pool. The biggest surprise for me was hearing an American tell a funny joke. “Why are the streets in France lined with trees?” “Because the Germans like to march in the shade.” Not groundbreaking, but it made me chuckle.
We again went to dinner and amazingly, Gerry seemed to have sprouted the beginnings of a personality overnight. We were given a stark reminder of her idiocy though when her shrill intonation requested an explanation from me as to why the English aristocracy had people to put their trousers on for them. “What’s up with that?” she whined. I explained to this recently qualified lawyer that it had about as much relevance to modern times as the slave trade does to modern America. I don’t think she understood. The only saving grace was that David hadn’t informed her of the dolphin smack down and we got to bullshit her via the medium of her own husband’s voice because neither of us could be bothered to tell her. It was then off to bed, having drunk about 18 gallons of water to try and rehydrate ourselves following the day’s tequila fest.
day 5: Puerto Vallarta:
Once again in order to reach land, we would have to take one of the tenders / lifeboats to shore. We decided to go quite early this time as when we were in Cabo San Lucas, the day had evaporated more quickly than the water in our bodies. The main areas of interest in Puerto Vallarta (henceforth known as PV) were a short taxi trip away ... once again too far to walk and particularly so, considering the temperatures were already getting quite heady despite the fact our breakfast hadn’t even begun to digest yet.
We were dropped off at the beach front, which was quite frankly beautiful, with a nice mixture of quirky sculptures, sand castle style art, and giant flocks of frolicing pelicans. We tried to find an impartial tourist guide, as once again it seemed that anyone you asked had some form of bias towards a product they were punting.
We found a guy in a tiny little office on the shore front who gave us all the information we required regarding the local attractions and was also seemingly duty bound to give fair warning of the gay area, which unless we liked seeing men in thongs holding hands, we should avoid.
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I had received an email from John Sanders complaining that if this was supposed to be a biker’s holiday, where were the babes? With this in mind, we headed to the hooters bar that the same tour guide had pointed out. However, when we got in there, it seemed that none of them were really of high enough quality to bother the digital camera with, so I think we will save that one for Hooters of Santa Monica (be patient John...).
Having paid for the water and orange tangos in the Hooter’s bar with a hundred dollar bill, it only dawned on us when the girl was on her way back that we we’re unlikelly to receive American dollars in change. Sure enough, we ended up with a load of pesos instead. This wouldn’t have been a problem if it weren’t for the fact that this was going to be our last day in Mexico. We were going to need a pretty healthy excuse to spend the rest of this money.
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Sure enough, as we strolled towards the end of the beach, there sat some Sea-Doos for hire. A bunch of kindly Canadians agreed to watch over our possesions and we went to hand over 550 pesos (~ 25 quid) for the two of us to get our much needed motoesque fix.
During our mild deliquency, we seriously considered whether we had enough gas to reach Cabo San Lucas and it’s tantalizingly enourmous margaritas. Amy did the maths, taking wind direction, slip streaming of cruise liners, and possible tows from friendly dolphins into account and begrudgingly admitted that we may just have to come back to Cabo San Lucas on holiday for a week. After half an hour of giggling and air time, trying to create our own ramps in the waves, we headed back to shore, resisting the temptation to bump the bald heads of the bathers with the hull of the SeaDoo.
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The moto fix had given us an appetite and naturally a thirst for tequila, so we went and had lunch and some drinks having collected our belongings from their benevolent guardians. We continued into the old part of town and after have taken some pics of some interesting spots, I happened upon a shop selling the most awesome Mexican wrestling masks you ever did see.
I literally had 250 pesos to my name, 100 of which was required for the taxi back to the ship. The street-wise and somewhat aggressive sales woman demanded 250 pesos for the mask. I explained to her that I would happily pay this were it not for the fact that it was very hot and we needed 100 pesos for the taxi back to the port, otherwise we were walking and would very likely die.
She seemed to think that I was just playing the bartaring game, and as she came down in quantities of 10 pesos or more, I kept telling her “No, you’re really not getting this, are you? It’s 150 pesos, or we end up walking.” Finally she relented and said “Ok, just give me the money. 150 pesos.”
It was great that I had managed to bag such a quailty mask for such a good price, but we then both realized that we really badly needed a drink and couldn’t spare any cash. The search for an ATM became more like the search for the A-Team, eventually Mr. T and howling mad Hronek found a bank and with it an ATM that dispensed enough cash to buy water, energy drinks, and the bread covered with sugar that Amy was desparate wasn’t just a figment of her imagination and that all of the time she spent in England asking for granulated sugar to put on her bread and butter wasn’t just some sort of perverse personal kink.
At this point we both decided that the weather was way hotter than we had given it credit for even for December (I guess you’re a lot closer to the equator in Mexico) and realized that it was getting the better of us. A quick rest in an internet cafe was all that was needed to convince us that the next stop should be a taxi, then a cold shower on the ship.
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Traffic in the taxi was pretty heavy and I thank god that when I asked the guy if he had air conditioning, he finally realized what we were talking about, wound the windows up and gave us sweet relief from the unreal heat. Son of a bitch, December.
When we got back, I decided that there was no way I could resist making some comedy use of the wrestling mask that I had bartered so hard for. We had a beach towel that matched the mask exactly, so I tied this around my neck as a cape, hoisted my underwear up to my navel and just as an unsuspecting old man was arranging a sun lounger outside our cabin window, I flung back the net curtain, hammered on the window, and squeald “I am a famous Mexican wrestler” at the terrified old chap. Me and Amy fell about laughing for what seemed like ages and tried to recreate on video for posterity a little later on, but the first time is always the best, and it just wasn’t the same. Fook me it was funny, though.
We monged out for a bit and by the time dinner was due to be served at 8:30, we were both on song again. Having gotten away with the dolphin story so convincingly, we decided that Amy had been subject to an attempted mugging in the center of PV, but that she had used her kickboxing skills to great affect and floored the sqealing Mexican man with a quality roundhouse to the jaw. Naturally this tale was told in animated detail to David and Gerry but we both soon realized that Gerry wasn’t as green as she was cabbage looking. She whispered something in David’s ear, and as his face dropped, it took on a look that could only have meant “Really, they’re lying? I’ve been such a dumbass.”
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Our dining guests, Gerry and david.
Nevertheless, we continued to chat and offered them a glass of “good” wine, which David took us up on. The reason we knew it was “good” wine was that in a lame attempt to make Antonio show us his Flava Flave / wine tasting cup, we’d asked him to taste the replacement bottle for us. During this display we learned a surprising amount about his hip hop apparatus and it turned out that the design of the little dish was far more complex than we could have ever imagined. We anxiously await using this new found knowledged on the next unsuspecting wine stewart we encounter.
Strangely, despite Gerry’s new found and highly justified distrust of us, we found a bizarre common ground in that they were huge fans of Ricky Gervais and particularly “The Office”.
We spent a good while discussing this and as usually the case when I am somewhat inebriated and spewing forth verbal diahorrea I was completely unaware that a slightlly bored Amy, who knew nothing about Ricky Gervais, was blatantly theiving my alcohol from under my very nose. It was therefore a shocked Otei that went to take a sip of his very expensive Long Island Ice Tea and discovered that it was pretty much only ice left in the glass.
I had been eating steak quite a bit, during our mealtimes, but had sadly been without any english mustard, so I asked the waier, gabriel if he had any at all. he went off and came back with exactly what i expected him to, Dijon mustard. It was then that the somewhat pompous Polish maitre d, (Rsyksyard or somethin, it was pronounced Richard, anyway). I said that they realy should have English mustard for the English steak lovers on board, and he proclaimed that they did have some and would go and find it.
He was gone a litle while, and returned with an unbelievably smug grin on his face as he goosestepped up the restaurant with a dish of English mustard in hand. Good skills mr Poland.
The final bit of mischief as we were heading off to bed was at the expense of a young girl that had knock one of the phone recievers off the wall mounted telephones. We arrived just as she turned her back, having finally managed to replace the handset. I flicked it off its mount as i walked past muttering “Oops, look what you did!” Poor little lamb then gamely struggled to get it bacl on the wall again as we strolled off s******ing. Pure evil, but maybe it builds character...or something!
The last couple of days were at sea just sailing back to San Diego.
During a day in Mazatlan though, we'd seen the most unbelievable pile of a motorcycle you ever did see.
It had a totally bald rear tyre, no reg plate and no cap on the fueltank. It was obviously a mix up of different bike and bodywork. Can anyone workk out what the silver dream machine is?
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Is it an old Honda VF with the later VFR 750 bodywork?
To be honest, i have no idea what it is for certain.
I'm pretty much with you on the whole "Old VF with newer bodywork on it", but I think the bodywork is CBR 600.
It was a perfect example of what the Mexican police consider to be real priorities in their daily lawenforcement though.
I think this pic illustartes the Mexican attitude to a tee:
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When we got back to San Diego, we went to the SD Animal Park.
It was pretty good. I don't really like Zoo's much, but this had free roaming areas on a scale that blew your mind. In fact, there were some areas, that with the benefit of the San Diego mountain backdrop, looked like their real habitat. It was only the fencing that occasionally gave it away in a photo.
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The next day we jut chilled out and did a few bits and pieces that needed sorting.
On Sunday though, we went off to see something I've wanted to see since I was a kid. when I watched the E.T film years ago, and I really liked the look of the neighborhood that they used in the film.
As it turns out, It's as nice as it looks.
We rolled up in the truck, BMX strapped in the back for some pics and had a look. As I was going towards the drive, the owner came down and I introduced myself.He was a realy lovely bloke, and spared quite a bit of time telling us about the history of the place.
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He hadn't been the owner when Steven Spielberg made the movie, but he said that Spielberg had been flying around in a helicopter, looking for the area that he had in his mind for the shot. When they turned up at the door of the house, the owner wasn't a big film buff, didn't know who he was and wasn't too keen to go along with it.
Then of course, dollars were offered and it was a done deal.
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The present owner, Tony, had been in residence when the directors of Charlies Angels wanted to use the house again though, and Drew barrymore made a return to the house, only this time she was naked. Awesome!
He gave us an insight into just what goes into making a film. He said that the crew were there for a week, filmed just one day, and that it was for about 6 seconds of footage at the beginning of the film. cameron Diaz had been rollerblading up and down the street and playing with the local kids.
They'd had so many support vehicles that it was ridiculous. Even a gardener that had different plants on hand if they decided they wanted them. Unreal.
So I had a ride around on my BMX, made a few people in cars smile and we drove off with me having satisfied a long standing and very odd ambition. I can't help it I'm afraid.
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I needed Hawkman's red hoodie though! :D
The same day as the E.T house, we decided to take a stroll around Hollywood.
If you ever get the chance to go, don't bother, it's an utter s h i t hole. It reminded me of skegness, what with all of the tacky stores and tattoo parlours etc.
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There were a couple of cool things to see, but nothing that really warranted the drive, despite it not being that far.
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I noticed something on this pic that had us in tears when we downloaded it..can you spot it?
One thing that was worth the effort, was the fact that we got to watcha couple of really good breakdancing crews. I could watch that stuff all day long. i've been a hip hop and b' boying fan since I was about 14, and was pretty handy in thebreakdancing stakes when i was a youth. These guys were incredible though.
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We rolled past Manns Cinese theatre, and quite how they make the whole thing look as glitzy on T.V as they do, is totally beyond me. Don'tget me wrong, the Theatre itself is very impressive,I just can't understand how they can make the turgid surroundings sem glamorous at all.
There was plenty of weirdness to be had though, and one guy dressed as Michael jackson stood rock still until you gave him some dough. Then he broke into some superfly MJ moves. This could be a good vocation for someone I used to work with, called Rob Wilkinson.
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Shammmoooon!
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Hollyweird
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Only Dom will get this one!
You remember the first day I was here I told you all about that crazy dude that was going to ride his bike of a cliff. Well it turns out that he did it. Not only did he ride it of a cliff...he rode it of THE cliff to beat all cliffs. The Grand Canyon!
Turns out that he's a very experienced skydiver who designs his own high performance canopies (I think that means something to do with parachuting, not a go faster sun shade for the garden!).
It was only going to be his 7th ever base jump though, so he needed to get it right.
Things went well to start with, but what he hadn't reckoned on was the effect of the bike pulling him down as he tried to make enough space between it and himself to safely open his parachute. He fell 1200 feet before the bike went on its side, started to float from side to side like a feather and he made enough distance on it to deploy his big handkerchief!
Below are the pics of the wreckage that's in the local bike shop I was in when the crazy Hispanic dude was planning his stunt. There is literally nothing salvagable from it...not a single useful item.
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If you look carefully, you can just see the remains of his ear sticking out of the mush...:lol:
Spent today mainly prepping the bikes for this weekend at Willow Springs. It'll be my 36th birthday on the First practice day, which is the Friday 15th. Happy boithdaaaay tooo meeeeeee!
I'm such a good lad, I even brought a pack of sponsors stickers with me to put on the bike, which is, incidentally, a 2003 R6 with 50,000 miles on it!. Uprated front forks, and an Ohlins rear shock. Braided lines and that's about it. It has a full arrow system, but isn't fitted with a power commander, so i don't know how much difference that'll make.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Timmy%20Topanga/Topanga%2013th%20dec/IMG_0031.jpg
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He gave us an insight into just what goes into making a film. He said that the crew were there for a week, filmed just one day, and that it was for about 6 seconds of footage at the beginning of the film. cameron Diaz had been rollerblading up and down the street and playing with the local kids.
They'd had so many support vehicles that it was ridiculous. Even a gardener that had different plants on hand if they decided they wanted them. Unreal.
:D
dude, i could have told you that meself! spent an entire day shooting (although mostly it was sitting around being brought food and drink...) to shoot what equated to around 20 seconds worth of on screen.
AHA!!! its your birthday tomorrow! er, our time... happy birthday Timbo! :D
Holy Shizzle!
Just got back from Willow Springs, and when they say it's the fastest road in the west, they really aren't kidding! It is totally unlike any circuit in the Uk.
I'll knock up a report over the next day or so, and I have plenty of pics to go with it.
Met some very, very cool people, and yanks can most certainly ride motorcycles in circles, not just straight lines. Nicky Hayden isn't a fluke and neither are the others.
Today I raced against top AMA supersport 600 riders Jason perez, Jeff tigert, Jeremy Toye (Just back from macau GP) etc and finished in some half decent spots. Woot for the UK! :)
More later.
Otei :)
Just as food for thought, the lap record is at an average speed of 113mph.
That's over a 2.5 mile course. It sure as s h i t doesn't feel like 2.5 miles!
:eek: :D
Got some interesting pics from the weekend, but thought that you peeps might like to see this.
It's a 900 Monster, named "frankenstein".
It's ridden by a nice Argentinian lad called Mauro, who incidentally, had heard of the Ducati sporting Club, and the desmodue series.
He said that he bought the engine from a guy called Domsk...oh no, wait...he he!
He's not been racing long, but seems to be going pretty quickly already, and was telling me all about the intricacies of riding a 160 MPH Ducati monster. Sounded like fun. I'm not too sure of any of the finer details about the bike as I was always running around somewhere or other, but took a few snaps anyway.
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So then, the racing.
We set off to do a practice day on the Friday and I must confess that I was bricking it. I was wondering just what I had let myself in for, with tales of modern 600's and AMA riders frequenting the grids, I just didn't want to look a tit.
When we arrived we unloaded the pick up and set up the garage. Now the yanks don't have vans to transport stuff like we do (Shandra referred to them as "kidnapper vans", which cracked me up). They either have a pick up truck of varying largeness, or a large pick up and a cool trailer. If they've got plenty of cash, they have a bloody great big wagon that wouldn't look out of place in a BSB paddock.
Having signed on and gotten ready for the first practice, it was announced that one of the new riders had spilled oil all the way down the straight and through turn 1. This was exactly what I didn't need for learning the circuit on my first day, that awful feeling of going across the white cement line at speed and hoping the track workers have done their job right!
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quite a few racers got out of their leathers and mucked in. I wasn't one of them, lazy git that I am
I had been introduced to one of the racers by Amy, called Ken Kramer. Ken also does the new racer school, so I tagged along for a few laps behind him to see what I could learn.
The first impression I got was of just how fast and open it is, with little or no reference points to speak of. turn one is down from 6th to 4th, then up to 5th for a long 180 degree right hander. This leads into a nasty little up and downhill section with terrible tarmac and weird cambers. Then it zings onto the back straight that leads into turn 8. Turn 8 is taken flat in 6th and then turns back in on itself, requiring you to go down a couple of gears as you're cranked over and try to aim it in the right direction so that you don't end up running off the track.
I came back in slightly intimidated, but hopeful I could learn it quickly.
Next session I followed Amy on her CBR 400 and was having a real hard time keeping up with her, even though I was on her R6. She doesn't hang around!
After a few sessions though, I started to get the hang of the place and was beginning to enjoy myself. The wind started to get quite blustery, and the place is notorious for catching out the unwary when it starts to get like that.Turn 8 and 9 weren't the sort of corners that you needed to have your front wheel blown from under you either!
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Team topanga on Friday practice
By the end of the day, I'd managed to get my times down to a 1:35.5, which I was told is very respectable for your first day at the track, so I was pretty happy with that.
It was my birthday that day, and as I walked back to the garage later, I strolled in and they were there with a bunch of iced muffins with " happy 36th birthday Tim" written on them. It was a really nice surprise. I got a cool book from Amy about Black holes and time warps, by Kip S thorne.
Shandra, Amy's friend had also made me a T shirt. I'd commented to Amy that I'd seen a really cool logo on some webite, and wished I could get a T shirt with the logo on. It turned out that you couldn't. Shandra however, had used her considerable talents to recrate one just from a tiny little logo grabbed from a site. Thanks for that Shandra, you're a legend.
Shandra had also been to the Freddie Spencer riding school recently, and brought me and Amy some cool signed gear. Very nice indeed.
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We weren't finished yet though apparently, and scooted off to a local Mexican restaurant for a bite to eat. After we'd eaten and partaken of more margeritas (I'll really need to hit the gym when i get back!) the waiters came out, plonked a big Sombrero on my swede and sang happy birthday to me again.
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With our faces glowing from the combination of the desert winds and the booze,we then trotted over to the hotel and got some shuteye.
Saturday official practice.
Today I would get to practice with the guys I'd be racing against, which would either be a very good, or a very bad thing, depending on how quick they were. I was reassured that my progress was fine and that I'd be ok.
The weather was very, very different to the day before though, and we could actually see some snow on the upper mountains in the distance, such was the reduction in temperature.
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Even Wyatt the dog had to wrap up warm.
After my first session, I was freezng my ass off, and couldn't get my head around riding the bike. It was clearly ok for riding though, and AMA superhero, Jason Perez proved it to me by coming around the outside of me in the flat out turn 8, with his knee kissing the deck in a chilly display of barely controlled lunacy. I was now extremely demoralised.
The chilly conditions didn't get any better, and at one point i went for a pee and nearly had a heart attack as I saw the size of my todger. I also thought I'd lost a knacker, such was the malteseresque nature of them at this freezing point in time. I couldn't lose my balls, I'd be needing them for the next day!
I had decided to wait until later in the day to fit a new set of tyres for the race and scrub them in. Sure enough, just as I was getting them swapped over (we only took one set of wheels) the heavens opened and it lashed it down.
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After a while it became pretty obvious that there was no way I would be able to scrub the new tyres in and that the morning practice would be my only chance.
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I had met a really nice bloke called Dave Moss at the track. dave's an ex pat, originally from Manchester. He now runs his own suspensionn tuning company, called Catalyst Reaction. He's gained alot of respect on the various race paddocks in the U.S, and works bloody hard, driving 60,000 miles a year to track days and race meetings. I wish him all the success in the world, he definitely deserves it.
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Dave Moss, hardest working man in the paddock, and the only one in shorts!
We scooted off to another Mexican restaurant, but as we were sat down to order, Shandra got a phone call from a young lad that had fallen off and broken his collarbone earlier in the day whilst she was instructing him on his new racer school. (Just to be clear, she didn't instruct him to fall off, he managed that on his own) He had been fixed up by the hospital sooner than she thought, and downed tools and went off to pick him up without a second thought.
Me, Amy and Shandra's parner, Chris ordered some nibbles and waited for them to return.
Kyle came back sporting a lovely little sling. It turned out that he was in the Marines, and at just over 20 years old, had already been to Fallujah for 7 months, right in the thick of it. Brave lad, never made anything of it either.
I hadn't managed to lap as quickly as I had the day before, but then neither had anyone else, such were the conditions. It had been useful just to keep learning the track, but not for much else.
Oh yeah, i forgot to add that when we got to the hotel on the Friday night, we thought it was on fire as the L.A fire dept were there in force!
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We never found out what was going on, but there was a prom night or something going on, so we figured that one of the girls had broken a nail or had a false eyelash trauma.
Sunday: Raceday.
Ok, this was it then. I'll be frank, I was terrified.
The weather was bright and clear, but still unbelievably chilly. We'd get 2 ten minute practice sessions in each class before a riders meeting (where they played the national anthem and gave respect to their troops in Iraq etc. I normally hate that sort of cheese, but it was quite touching) then the racing would get underway. Gulp!
I still had to scrub the tyres in, so I went out carefully and wobbled round, feeling like a 1st day rookie. It wasn't pretty. When I came in, Amy noticed that the tyres were wearing a little strangely, and had lips on the tread edges. I didn't think too much of it and went out for the second session.
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Whaddya mean I look scared!
Having started to get more confident and faster on the bike, it was now blatantly clear that there was something amiss with the suspension. Whereby before, I could sail relatively smoothly around the turns, It was now like a little jackhammer, pattering from the rear just about everywhere.
I went to see Dave Moss, who came straight over and had a look at the tyres. One glance was all he needed to diagnose too much rebound damping. The cooler temperatures had affected the shock and it wasn't working the same as when it had been alot warmer, so we backed it off a couple of turns and I'd just have to hope that it was ok for the race.
Race number 4, the 600 Superstock came around far too quickly, and before I knew it, I was in the holding area, with my heart attempting to beat it's way out of my chest cavity.
It was a while since I'd been this nervous, and all I could think about was how fast this racetrack was, Kyle's broken collarbone and my total lack of medical cover for the race. This was starting to seem like a really irresponsible thing to be doing.
As soon as I got out on the warm up lap, the bike felt much better and I knew I had my race head on. The temperature was up quite a bit now, and things were much more like Fridays conditions. I lined up on the last row of the grid in 23rd place and waited for the start sequence. A guy raises a board with the number 2 on it, then flips it over to reveal a number 1, then turns it sideways, and after that, he can raise the green flag at any point to start the race.
I got a good start and used my elbows well enough in the first turn to clear a path through a few riders. I passed one around the outside in the 5th gear second turn and set my sights on the pack of 5 or 6 bikes ahead of me. I was riding calmly and seemingly pretty well, catching them and getting rid of them one by one until I came across a guy called Mark Hill....yes, really!...the difference is that this Mark Hill is a black guy. I took him into the steep turn 5, which I was pleased with as it was a tricky pass and set off after a gixxer 600 ahead of me. I caught him and slingshotted out of his slipstream into turn 1, but couldn't make it stick. After that, I couldn't make enough ground on him and crossed the line in 13th place.
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The viper stripe roof lid on tour.
As I cruised around on the slow down lap, I got an immense sensation of elation. It's an unreal feeling to go and race total strangers in a foreign land 5000 miles away. I felt quite proud, and that in some lame way, I was representing our country. Stupid, I know, but i'm something of a romantic.
These guys race every month of the year at this track, and so get to become track specialists. I'd reduced my laptime to a 1:33.8, and was informed that it isn't the norm for people to do that on their first time at the track. Apparently, if you can regularly lap under the 1:30 bracket, you qualify for a pro licence. Maybe I'll try to do that next time, although I hear they're reducing it to 1:28...Hmmm!
The second race was quite soon after, being as it was number 7 and it was destined to be a bit of a disappointment as soon as the warm up lap started. However, It was pretty cool when the announcer mentioned me and the fact that I was "all the way from over the pond!"..he he..cool!
The temperatures had dropped again, and the chatter had returned. It wasn't as significant as the morning practice, but was enough to make the bike unpleasant to ride. I didn't get a great start, but managed to elbow my way through again and started to chase down the same guys I'd battled with in the first race. To be honest though, I didn't have enough pace and dropped off the back of them, deciding just to bring it home safely and make sure everything was in one piece for the laguna Seca trackday on the 26th.
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They have Chavs in the states too it would seem!
As it turned out, there weren't quite as many on the grid for this race, and that, coupled with the fact that a few fell off, meant that I finished in 12th place, but with a laptime of 1:35 as my best.
Amy was racing her CBR 400 and just mised out on her first podium in one race, after a titanic battle with the guys at the front saw her slide in 4th by a wheel length. She made up for it later though as she stormed of into second place and put a gap on 3rd. The race was then red flagged and restarted, so she'd have to work at it again. She got a good start and battled away, eventually taking 2nd and her first trophy.
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Woohoo..feels good!
It was a popular result and the commentator went bonkers. People were waiting in pitlane to give her a hug as she cam back in. It was a great moment and I was so pleased to have been there to witness her first trophy winning ride.
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JC Gibbs, Amy and Ken Kramer.
After having a few drinks and chatting with people for a bit, we packed up and headed home. It had been an amazing weekend, and one that I'll never forget.
Something to consider, is that the Friday and Saturday practice, and my 2 races, had cost me the grand total of 150 quid. Couple that with the fact that petrol is 1.25 GBP for 4 litres, and it's a real eye opener.
I'd like to thank all of the people at the circuit that made me feel genuinely welcome and who were so good to me. I'll be back for more!
Most of all though, I want to say thank you to Amy, who has put so much time and effort into this that it makes me feel very humble. Thank you.
God I feel sick :barfy:
Is the 4th Ashes test on yet?
;)
Nice work though T.O.Tei
Tim,
Please excuse my silly question, but I just can't help myself...
I wonder, can you please tell me (and everyone else) what the racing is like
over the pond?
Many thanks
Your long long lost friend (mentally as well as physically - lost that is)
Domski :D
Why certainly young Dominic.
It's much the same as in the UK, only their leathers zip up the opposite way round.
I'm sure you'll find out sooner rather than later. ;)
Why certainly young Dominic.
It's much the same as in the UK, only their leathers zip up the opposite way round.
I'm sure you'll find out sooner rather than later. ;)
Woo Hoo!!!
See you next T...
;)
Well I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas, mine was certainly the strangest, and definitely one of the coolest I've ever had, but I'll carry on where I left off, which was just before Christmas.
On the 22nd of December we went to Medieval Times, which those of you that have watched The cable guy, starring Jim Carrey will know is a sort of Theatrical swords and jousting type affair, combined with loads of booze and some food. In fact, this was the very one that they used in the film.
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I'd really been looking forward to this, and It's difficult to put into words just how much I enjoyed it, but suffice it to say that when I came out I had it on a par with racing at Willow Springs...seriously, it was absolutely fantastic. If you ever get the chance to go, DO NOT pass it up. There are 5 located across the States.
We arrived, and the Medieval theme is instantly in effect, with everyone calling you Lord or my Lady. We had our goofy picture taken with the king, then went and had some seriously strong cocktails and beer.
You all get assigned a Knight to cheer for, and ours on this occasion was the black and whit Knight, and so we wore black and white striped crowns. Lame yet truly brilliant.
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The show is quite an affair, run to a soap opera type storyline, with performing Andalucian stallions, Falconry and of course the jousting, swordfighting and target events. The guys that do this are serious athletes and really go at it when it comes to the swordfighting and such with sparks flying off metal as they seemingly try to cleave each others skulls! It's pretty clear that it's choreographed, but they still managed to make it convincing enough that a drunken Otei was hoarse and red raced having enthusiatically screamed his way through the majority of the evening. (I have excellent and hilariously embarrasing videos that demonstrate this to great effect).
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They don't provide utensils to eat with, and you only get 1 napkin (so I went to the bog, grabbed a load of paper towels and supplied the entire front row with them). The food is very good, simple fare. Huge bits of chicken, potato, ribs, soup and a desert, with a couple of free beers each.
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The best bit, was that on the night, our chap was the winner of the tournament, until he was bumped off by the evil, scheming Lord Chancellor (plot twist).
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A totally awesome show, and i'll definitely go again, but this time i'll dress up and REALLY get into it!
It was going to be a busy few days, and the next day, we arranged to take a tour of the Griffith Observatory. This was the building that gained its initial mainstream fame from featuring in the James dean movie,"Rebel without a cause"
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It was a beautiful day, and the views over L.A were spectacular with the Hollywood sign visible above and behind us.
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Ther building itself has only recently reopened, after undegoing a 4 year, 93 million dollar refurbishment program. During this program, they added more space to the building by adding another floor below the existing one.
We didn't give any thought to how they had actually managed to achieve this until we watched a movie in the theatre there. It turns out that they actually lifted the entire building up on rams and excavated underneath it and then built what they needed. During the movie, the guy in charge of it casually declared that they had never done this beore, and that it was all theoretical stuff. I don't know how he slept at night!
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There was all sorts of stuff in there for us space nuts and we merrily gawped at all the cool stuff, including their very own Tesla coil (not that it has anything to do with space). Tesla coils were invented by a guy called Nikolai Tesla, and initially they were an experiment in trying to make electricity go from one place to another without the need for expensive cables and routing. They were ultimately unsuccessful, but alot of the theories he came up with are in use inthe national electricity grids we use today.
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At the end of the day, just as we were going to be making our way back down the hillside in the bus, there was this helicopter that came in really close to the cliffside. Amy took a pic that turned out really cool.
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After this, we went to some friends house, where we changed into our posh gear (suit and tie and cocktail dress). We had managed to get an invite to a very exclusive hollywood club called the Magic Castle. As you may have guessed, It's a place where they have magicians. There are several bars and a restaurant where we had a very nice meal.
The place is a real rabbit warren, with corridors twisting here and there, and lots of little close up magic shows and other, larger displays. It was prettycool and I'd like to go back and spens a little more time there,checking out a few more of the shows.
Unfortunately, I have no pics, as cameras weren't allowed in the place. It has a website though:http://www.magiccastle.com (http://www.themagiccastle.com)
The next day was pretty much a chill out day, although we did have to load up the bikes in the truck, as we were setting off on Christmas day to Monterey where we would be doing a trackday at Laguna Seca. Now I've been wanting to do this since I was about 17, so to say i was a litle excited is putting it mildly.
The weather for the drive up next day was lovely, with bright sunshine and mid 70's temperatures.
I had heard stories about how spectacular the scenery was on the Pacific Coastal Highway, which as you may have guessed is the road that runs along the West coast of the United States. i wasn't disappointed by the tales, and the views and surrounding natural architecture were impressive, inspiring and somewhat intimidating all at the same time.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Drive%20to%20laguna%20on%20PCH%20Xmas%20day/IMG_0066.jpg
The journey was going to be between 6 and seven hours each way, so I took half of the driving duties and have probably logged about 400 miles in the U.S now. I must confess that I wa pleased Amy was driving when we were on some of the tight and twisty PCH roads, that were lined with possible rock slides and precarious cliff drops on the other side. You would really want to be very used to any vehicle you were driving up there, and how some people get Motorhomes around there without suffering brain meltdown is beyond me.
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At the start of the journey, we had stopped off to get some petrol. As I was driving and about to navigate my way back onto the Freeway, a Mexican looking guy leaned out of his truck that was parked alongside us and shouted "hey buddy, what kind of bikes are those?..touring bikes?" What with my mind being preoccupied with being on the right side of the road, I just gave him the standard and honest reply "No mate, they're race bikes" Amy was slightyl less charitable though, and let loose with "What kind of Moron are you, Mexican or South east asian Moron?". I don't think he heard her to be honest, but we were both cracking up for miles after that.
On the way we stopped off at the campest restaurant/bar you have ever seen in your life. It's called the Madonna Inn, and is extremely pink and covered in lights. It's a pretty impressive joint though and has some unreal stuff inside...including a mens urinal that is like a mini waterfall!
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http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Drive%20to%20laguna%20on%20PCH%20Xmas%20day/IMG_0022.jpg
We were still on the PCH as the sun was going down, and to be honest, although the final 120 miles was hard going concentration wise, we both considered ourselves really lucky to be able to see such an amazing sight on Christmas day of all days.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Drive%20to%20laguna%20on%20PCH%20Xmas%20day/IMG_0093.jpg
After 7 hours including stops, we hit Monterey and signed in at the Otter Hotel.
We were obviously going to be missing Christmas dinner, so we decided to bring our own from the delicious resourses of Gelsons Deli. We started with a lovely waldorf salad and Prawns and the for a main course we had pecan encrusted and parmesan topped chicken breast, with candied yams, stuffing, cheese potatoes and a delicious chiken pasta. we followed thi with some cake that we bought at the Madonna inn, all washed down witha lovely bottle of red wine.
Before we left, amy asked me if I wanted to look at the weather forecast for Laguna. I declined, said that it would do whatever it was going to do whether we looked or not, and that I didn't want to be depressed about it if it said rain. As it turned out, it was fortunate that we didn't look, as the forecast was for a terrential downpour!
I was amazed how well I slept, considering that I'd be ticking one of life's major boxes the next day, but I was also glad, as I figured that Laguna was going to be a pretty physical track, and I haven't seen a gym in over a month.
It was dark when we set off from the hotel, so it was hard to see what the weather was up to, but it was dry, and that was what counted. As the skies brightened, we could see that it was slightly overcast, and it looked like it might start to drizzle. I tried to remain upbeat, but was now itching to get the briefing over and done with and get onto the track.
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The organisers, Red Shift, were very nice, extremely helpful and not at all bolshy. Something else of note, is that Laguna is very much like Brands GP, in that they only get about 5 dates a year for trackdays. The day had cost the equivalent of 150 quid, and they even chucked in a really nice lunch (there was loads of really nice food, but I just had a small plate of chicken and salad). I can't ever imagine getting that here, even if I had paid 250 for a brands GP trackday.
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There was a guy there doing onboard video for $95. Fortunately, Amy knew him (Brant WiWi,WSMC No1 plateholder, great name too!) and he owed her a favour, as she had taken care of everything when he'd had a major off at a track and smashed his hand up. She basically organised for all his stuff to make it home etc. He announced that he would be giving away a half price video session to one of the lucky punters. Imagine our surprise when he called my name out. Nice one Brant!
So then, to the track. we went out in the fast group, as I'd always rather be the slowest in the fast group, than amongst a bunch of people who weren't sure whether they were quick or not. At least you were in experienced company.
Now it isn't very often that I go to a track, do one session and not at least know where the track goes, but wether it was a combination of the high anticipation and the technical layout of the track or what I don't know. But when I came in off the first session, I had no clue where the bloody track went at all! This unerved me slightly, as I only had another 2 sessions before we'd arranged to do some video work. I didn't want to look like a nobber.
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The next session was much better, the sun was out and I started to get a feel for the track. I was slightly worried that I'd be disappointed. I needn't have bothered, it's awesome. I wouldn't say that it's any more spectacular than Cadwell..in fact I'd go so far as to say that Cadwell is a little crazier, but there are places where you really have to know where you're going in order to go quickly, and I instantly saw why Rossi couldn't win there straight away, it's pretty unique.
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The 3rd session was better still, and I now felt as thoughI was ready to at least look half decent on the bike video. The corkscrew is cool, and not as intimidating as some would have you believe. I think the part that was intimidating is the fact that there's a large area of sealer where the track has been repaired at the top, and it doesn't look as though it would offer any grip whatsoever. The real intimidating part is the braking zone, which is very difficult to get absolutely right.
At this point, a mate of mine, Dave Wallis turned up. I met dave when I sold him a CBR 400 cyinder head over a year and a half ago, but hadn't hooked up in realtime yet, so it ws cool to meet him. truth be told, he's the original reason I managed to get over here, so I owe him a great debt. I'd like to get him racing in the UK next year as well as Amy, so I may be trying to blag spare bikes left right and centre!
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One of the best things about the entire day, was that there were quite a few people attending that had been racing at Willow Springs, so i felt like I was in friendly company straight away.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Laguna%20Track%20day/IMG_0117.jpg
One of these people was a crazy guy called Tim Martinez. Tim's a great bloke, and very funny. His SV 650 says everything about the man that tends to wander around in a carhaart one piece "bearsuit" and a santa hat most of the time. It has it's own wooden dash, stickers from everywhere all over it, graffitti, and even 3 rubber ducks named after each member of the glam rock band, Kiss. Awesome.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Laguna%20Track%20day/IMG_0118.jpg
Willow Springs Superbike rider Robbie Dowie was there, as was Jason Perez and several other faces I recognized.
After lunch, It was time for me to perform in front of the camera. I didn't give it much thought untilI rolled up to Brant and we were about to set off, then the pressure seemed enormous. Fortunately, I rode smoothly and at what I figured was an extremely respectable pace for what was my 4th session on the track. I was pretty beat when i came in and rolled up alongside Brant. He asked me if I wanted the good news or the bad news.
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The good news was that I was one of the quicker people he'd video'd, which made it more fun for him. The bad news was that the camera had packed in after the 3rd corner!...AARRRRGGHHHH!
I had been so relieved with how it had gone, and to be told that we'd have to go and do it all again was a little frustrating, but never mind. Sure enough, the next session came around, and I tried to focus on a few points that Brant had mentioned might make me go quicker.
I didn't think I rode as well as the first session, but Brant said that my lines and corner speed through some of the turns had improved and that I seemed to have actually taken notice of what he'd said and put it to use immediately, which was rare as folk usually revert back to what is comfortable. Perhaps this is why I didn't feel as fast, but whatever the case, we got the footage and I'll try to get it uploaded somewhere at some point.
The last session was just a bit of a muck about, grinding kneesliders and having a blast. I really like left handers, and turn 5 is a fast sweeping uphill left with great grip and good camber. I hardly ever wear out kneesliders, but I knackered the one on my left knee through that turn. Awesome!
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Laguna%20Track%20day/MF1A8445.jpg
So then, to summarise: laguna was a slight disappointment as far as the facility itself was concerned. I thought it would be a bit grander, but the track is amazing and I can't wait to go back one day and improve the areas that needed work.
I simply can't tell you how lucky we were with the weather. It was perfect all day, then about 20 minutes after we'd done our last session, it totally hammered down. really dodged a bullet that day.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Laguna%20Track%20day/IMG_0150.jpg
We went out that night and had a great meal with Tim Martinez, his partner Tracy and Dave Wallis and his friend Carrie. It rained all night. Phew!
You're up late Ian!
Thanks for the kind words mate, I sometimes wonder if people are interested or not. I don't wish it to come across as if I'm rubbing peoples noses in it. I'm just having a great time and wanted to share the experience. It's also so that my family and friends can keep an eye on me! ;)
Good skills on the potential loan of your bike, I'd love to be able to repay the people for what they've helped me achieve.
Got to come back on the 1st though. Bummer!
Cheers,
Tim :)
The day after the trackday, we went to see the famous Monterey bay aquarium as it was only a few hundred yards from our hotel.
It was now really windy and the weather was awful. Once again I thanked my lucky stars that the highlight of my trip hadn't been ruined by rain.
The aquarium is a great place, particularly if, like me, you were fascinated by underwater nature programs as a kid. I used to sit for hours watching Jaques Cousteau and the like as they sailed their way around the world. The visit to the aquarium has really made diving something that I want to do, but at the right place and time. Like winter in Australia for example!
We started our way through the aquarium, and there was a mega jellyfish exhibit. we then found ourselves face to face with the centrepiece of the building, the million gallon tank.
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The first thing we saw was this huge Sunfish. It was so cool, it looked like it had dropped in from the Jurassic period for a quick swim around. Unreal. There were also some gigantic Tuna, some barracuda, reef sharks and the showpiece, a real, live Great White shark. The Great White was only a baby, and to be honest, the Sunfish and tuna were just as impressive in different ways, but it was cool to see one close up in the flesh. I now want to do a cage dive with it's older brothers and sisters even more badly!
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The very friendly Giant Sunfish.
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Look, It's a Great White..WOOOT!
There was a load of other cool stuff, including a large Kelp forest display, and some hilariously entertaining Sea Otters. It's a definite must see if you're in the area.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p182/otei_photo/Monterey%20bay%20Aquarium/IMG_0068.jpg
I drove half the way home, and we decided to try and cut across country to avoid the traffic that would pile up in Santa barbara by taking the 198 across to the 5. The 198 was like the land that time forgot, and the only clue that we weren't in the wild west, was the ribon of modern tarmac ahead of us. There were old buildings and farms that looked like they housed a load of Waltons clones. Weird but cool.
The weather then turned really nasty, with mega winds and rain that forced the 5 to have lanes closed down in the opposite direction due to mudslides, so you aren't having all the crappy weather to yourselves in the UK!
It's nicer today in Southern cali, but still windy!
Hmmmmm!
Sat reading this for something to do as the Mrs is off to a Prodigy concert.
I REALLY need to get my act together and organise another adventure for next year.
Trip to Vegas, ride Paruhmp racetrack (one of the smoothest in the universe apparently) go to Bodie ghost town, race at Infineon...and whatever else i can cram into a couple of months.
I do believe I'll start researching stuff :)
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