Joshua Tree

Well we wanted to see the legendary Joshua Tree which most famously features on the U2 album of the same title so we left the LA traffic and headed towards there which was a bit out the way as we had to go back down towards the south and our eventual location is San Fran which is north, but we have time.

The drive was pretty spectacular as you go through the Palm Springs area and see all the wind farms which makes my mind put 2 and 2 together and know that tonight is going to be a windy one. The landscape and vegetation change as you reach the Yucca Valley in the Mohave Desert. I love saying that word, 'Mohave', it's funny the way it rolls off the tongue. We got a great little campsite right in the Joshua Tree Nat. Park and thanked our lucky stars we bought some sleeping reinforcements, namely a blow up mattress and a thick duvet, or comforter if you live this side of the world. It was cold and with the wind picking up we would need all the warmth we could get.

We were feeling a little lazy to do a braai, so Celia and I headed for the Rib Co. we saw in the nearest town for a bit of a feast. It did not disappoint and we turned in for the night to the howls of the coyotes.

Fortunately the wind did not pick up as expected that evening and we slept pretty well. We decided to stay another night so we just say back and relaxed. Went and bought some meat and coal for this evenings dinner and caught up with some current affairs on the computers at the library.

We went for a romantic sunset walk through the desert looking for that iconic Joshua Tree picture which we sort of got (still a bit of editing required) and just appreciated this unique countryside that we had before us.

Now the wind we never got last night was here with a bit extra tonight making the task of lighting the fire that wee bit harder. Job done and the chicken was spectacular, we marinaded it in some Jack Daniels BBQ basting we bought from the Rib Co. the evening before.

We got precious little sleep this evening as our little $39 tent was not built for high winds and with enough air in your lungs you can get the tent poles to bend a fair way so during the night as you are lying down watching them bending at a 45° angle you pray for it to end.

Well it never flew away as I was sure it would and we managed to get a few hours sleep in. Our neighbours in their RV said they were worried about us in our little tent during the night. Should've invited us in - I actually really want to see inside one of those fancy RV's that warrant a $300k-$400k price tag.

We packed up our tent and took a drive through the park, going to the various lookout points and landmarks they have on offer. Celia and I even bought a couple Joshua tree seeds which we want to plant when we get back to JHB. Granted the tree takes about 100 years to get a couple feet tall, a handful of inches in my lifetime will be good enough for me.

Dream Center Sunday

We had only planned saying here at the dream center for 3 nights so sunday was time to leave, but not before we went to Angelus Temple in the morning and a great bit of teaching by Matthew Barnett. He once again had an amazing message and introduced us to a program this guy in New York is running called charitywater.org. They build wells in Africa where there is no drinking water and the amazing thing about it is every cent you give to them goes straight into building the well, not a cent for administration.

After the service Celia and I went to introduce ourselves to pastor Matthew and he is a lovely, down to earth guy. We chatted to him for about 5 minutes and he said how much he wants to come to South Africa and speak there which would be a treat for many.

Later that afternoon we went with Justin to a meeting of Red Eye, down at Dr. Tea's in West Hollywood. They were meeting with the head of the 'Beverly Hills Times' who gave a bit of a speech about his involvement in the organization which was a little confusing as he seems to want to create an army of alcoholics and drug addicts, not young people expressing their talent in a safe environment. It was so funny as he was saying he will take them all to these social function to network with others at the the Viper Room, Mercedes Benz event launch, etc. You could see all these peoples faces light up, mine not excluded, but he's completely missing the point here and only jumping on the bandwagon of high profile people giving to a charity that they don't understand.

One of the highlights of my day was meeting Adrian Grenier, the main actor from Entourage. He saw the group of people meeting up at Dr. Teas and came to see what was going on, I introduced myself and chatted to him for a couple minutes and them he was off. I must say I was a little star-struck, but at that point I knew it was time to leave LA as I had seen a celebrity so we could head off.

With the afternoon almost up, we decided to head back down to Newport to this little church called 'Newport Church', makes sense doesn't it. It's along the marina next to Joe's crab shack if anyone's interested. Now they have the services in this old nightclub there which is an amazing venue as you feel like you are at this intimate gig watching a wold class band (which is actually what they are). The problem with it is that its so small you can only fit, I'm guessing, about 80 people in it, this leads to the problem of them having 2 services on a Sunday morning and 4 in the evening. We stayed for two of them, both great messages by Matthew Barnett who was inspiring as always.

We clearly couldn't leave the Dream Center tonight so we stayed another evening and said goodbye to all the great people we had met the following day over another questionable, but free Dream Center canteen meal.

Dreamcenter here we come

Now explaining what the Dream Center is in on entry is going to be hard work, but if you are really curious, you can have a look here www.dreamcenter.org. We got to the Dream Center on the Thursday night after driving through the worst traffic known to man, the LA highway system. I thought London or JHB were bad, but this is non stop bumper to bumper, 24h stuff. We did get to drive through Beverly Hills though and saw some of the many mansions around the area. Also getting a chance to see the famous "Hollywood" sign on the hill which in it's won right is pretty cool.

Thursday nights at the Dream Center they have a midweek church service which is pretty cool as we were able to go that evening and were blown away by their praise and message, we also met some really awesome people including some from the UK who are over there to volunteer long term. We quickly struck up a bond with them and learnt much from them about how the project works and what they do within the program.

Friday morning was our first chance to help out and we had to pack the trucks for the 'adopt-a-block' outreach. This is where tens of buses drive out to the homeless and residents in surrounding areas in LA to find out how they can help. Our block turned out be an area in South Central LA which is full of gangs and rife with drugs. We helped hand out the food to the needy and spoke to them about any other care they require for themselves and their families. We also ended up cleaning out the trash from their yards and streets to make it look a little cleaner.

On one of the evenings we got to go on a group tour to Universal City where we met Justin Mayo who works at the Dream Center and heads up a program called Red Eye, which is trying to get young people of talent to express them in an environment where they don't have to end up acting like Britney Spears or Amy Majestic Wine Warehouse.

We met some really amazing people here, from converted drug addicts, to ex gang members and leaders and also the people that are helping out to achieve the above mentioned goals. I will not forget these days in a hurry.

Malibu

I haven't mention all the other amazing beaches there are in LA and OC, there are just too many, but if you take a drive down the PCH, you will want to stop at all of them. Beautiful sand and great waves, not bad temperature for winter either (well not the water). Huntington beach is really nice and the sand stretches as far as you can see, great day out.

I hate admin, and returning the car was just that. Once we had finished with all our sight seeing we had to find the drop off spot near the airport and collect our new Hertz car. The Pakistani guy at the counter was a great salesman and got me going on about cricket and agreeing with everything he said that I even said yes to an upgrade. So now we were in a Honda Accord 2.4l tank. It made sense as we had far to go, the other Kia we had in store would not have cut it.

We drove back up to Malibu, to the campsite where we had left all our gear and pitched our tent that afternoon. Malibu is really nice and is pretty peaceful compared to the rush of LA and a lesser extent OC. We had already taken a drive along the coast through Santa Monica, seen the famous S. Monica pier and surrounding beaches so that evening after collection our car we took a walk down S. Monica boulevard, peering at all the shops and stopping at one of the fine Japanese restaurants for some good food and my fav. beer Sapporro as well as Celias fav. beer, Asahi. Two birds with one stone.

Our campsite in Malibu had an ocean view and was a little elevated giving you great views of the bay. Sadly when we woke up you could not even see past the coastline. They had an early what they call "May and June gloom". This happens aroiund that time when the fronts blow in from the sea and don't go anywhere cause there is no wind in Malibu because it's protected by the S. Monica mountains. They just wait for the sun to burn it off.

I still went for a run along the beach passing all these mansions build on stilts right on the water which unfortunately forced me to sing "the foolish man builds his house upon the sand..", for the entire length of my run, couldn't get it out no matter how many times I tried to switch songs, damn you Sunday school.

I also couldn't find Pam Andersons house along the water either.. seen it enough times on cribs so I had a pretty good idea what it looks like. I did see many Pam Anderson wannabe's that morning though.

Camping in the OC

We did a bit of research and found a couple great state beaches we wanted to stay in. First stop Encinitas. This is a very cool little surfing town known for their big waves and laid back culture. We pitched our tent for the evening and went down to the beach to have a look at the southern Californian sunset. It did not dissapoint.

We never spent much time there the following day apart from pizza for lunch, and time on the phone trying to organise a new rental car for the rest of our trip, when that job was done we headed for Dana Point California, to our next stop.

Dana Point is just down the road from Laguna Beach which is a fantastic little village. It has a very European feel to it and the cafes and boutiques make the walks through the streets thoroughly entertaining. With all these fine restaurants here, we decided to go to a diner....?? Well it was in our budget, but please if you are ever in Laguna, don't go to Johnny Rockets, it was terrible.

We ended that evening off with a trip to the cinema. I love these old movie houses in the US with the ticket and concession stands just how they are in the movies you know (you can see i'm loving California a little too much). Watched 'Juno' which was quite good, kind of movie my sister would enjoy, so if you're reading, go watch it.

Had some good sleep last night apart from the noise of the train which on it's own is loud enough, but then to warn all the folk, it blows it's horn. Should have expected it as we had the same issue last night, only worse.

In the morning I went for a run on the beach as I do whenever we are staying near one. There is nothing better than feeling the sand between your toes while watching the surfers and wildlife. On this occasion the wildlife was a pod of dolphins swimming a few hundred yards off the beach. I couldn't run all day and while I was feeding my quarters into the shower machine Celia was busy watching a Minky whale swim by.... gutted I never saw it, but really happy for her.

Time to be off

Sunday was pretty cool as we got to go to Jackie and Nathans church. Had a chat to my dad in the morning as he was going in for more heart shocks the next day and we got to say a couple prayers in church for him. We lazed around and slept till I got word that he was out of ICU and fine so we went to bed.

Morning arrived today & we knew it was time to go. We had been here for 5 days and needed to return our rental car in LA so we had to start heading back.

I was fantastic to have spent these days with Nathan and Jackie in their lovely home and hopefully they'll come do the same with us in SA

Diving at La Jolla

Now before we start, 'La Jolla' is pronounced la-hoya, not la-joller like all you fellow Saffers would say it (just as I did).

Nathan and I decided to go catch some lobster on the Thursday night so we could pig out on Friday.

I hired all my gear and some tanks for us and we went out on a cold spring evening. It didn't all go as planned and within 20min we were back on dry land after trying for ages to to get out past the breaking waves. This was also my first night dive so maybe a step too far for my limited, yet refined experience.

Saturday we tried again, and by day we fared tonnes better. We had two fantastic dives even if the water was only 50°F. There was much to see including Sea Lions, Sharks, Bat Rays, King Crab, Lobster and many other types of fish. It was not actually that cold through your 7mm wetsuit especially if you never resisted the urge, only your face burns like hell from the cold.