It's a Dog's Life!

This is my new best mate Sherman...who lives with my cousins, Bob and Linda. Bob and Linda are generously putting me up between two of my trips- Hawaii and South America.

They live in San Marcos, which is in Southern California [not LA Southern Cal, but the REAL Southern Cal-a stone's throw from the Mexican border]. Sherman is a doll and he is part Dingo. Bob reckons this is why Shermie and I get along so well. He stays glued to my legs when I am walking around here- except when we go to the park, where he bounds off like a Kangaroo into the grass and gets spaced out on a blade of grass and can't hear me call him back.

My trip through Oregon and California has been a Dog's tour. Starting with my friends Linda and Roy who live Oregon. [This is them on the steps of their beautiful house in the Oregon bush]. And next to them is one of the collies -they have 3 dogs- two beautiful collies and a schnauzer [forgive my spelling if this is not right]. Their house is situated in the middle of the Oregon pine forests which makes the air fresh and clean.

Linda and I had a great time roaming around the area and reminiscing about the good old days at Hollywood High School. Linda helps me remember those days because my brain cells have died in relation to the 60's, so I am shaky on what happened. She also has all the class photos up in frames on the walls so we can stand there and point at people and say: "remember......". Good fun. I had 4 lovely days there and then headed down the coast road..which you may have read about in "If you can remember the 60's...." blog entry.

After my 2 day trip to Berkeley I moved south, to LA- [Los Angeles] Brentwood namely- to my friend Ellen, who is also a Hollywood High alum. She has three terriers of some exotic kind. [Can't remember the exact brand name, but they actually came from the Netherlands and Ellen flew over to Amsterdam to pick them up] Clarice, Conan and Claymore, who are enthusiastic barkers and keep her safe from harm. My fave moment was trying to drag Claymore up the road for a walk. [Conan bailed out at the driveway, but Clarice was into it]. I am not sure who is showing up in this snap, except for Ellen...who by the way, looks pretty much like she did in High School [hmm] We had a time of it, because she had somehow contracted some exotic staff infection and had to stay at home, so she sent me out exploring and I reported back at the end of my journeys. One of my forays into the world outside of Brentwood was spent with my HHS English teacher Harry Major down in Hollywood proper. That was an interesting afternoon. We went to a local coffee shop- the kind with booths and funky pictures on the walls- this one was called the Yukon Mining Company- and talked about pretty much everything under the sun. Harry Major was the teacher I learned the most from at HHS and it is always interesting to shoot the breeze with him. He has a great sense of humour as well.

My second day trip was to the Getty Museum. The Getty is perched on top of a hill overlooking Los Angeles city. Here is a snap of LA on the day I went. You can see why they have smog alerts and don't allow children to come outside on days like this. I don't know about you, but I can barely see the buildings of downtown LA in the distance. The grounds of the museum were pretty nice- lots of gardens and interesting buildings. But the content at the museum was less than ordinary. I stayed long enough for a stroll through some of the buildings and the gardens and not much more.

Which of course, brings me to Southern Cal and Sherman- where I started. Getting down here was a trip...I had to wait until 10ish so that I wasn't creamed out by the LA freeway traffic, which is dense and when it is flowing goes at about 100 mph [note all you Aussies, I said MPH not KM] It frightens me to go that fast, especially when they are on the other side of the road...I am not used to looking out that window to see oncoming traffic. The other traffic condition before 10AM is sitting in traffic for hours before you get to move.

I am sort of resting here before the next journey, which is to Hawaii with my cousin Sue. We are both looking forward to the experience. Meanwhile, I am practicing some hill walking- which of course will NOT prepare me for walking in the Andes, but is good fun and a bit of a challenge. This area is really interesting geographically. It is in the high desert- and the landscape is filled with rolling hills and boulders and scrub. I get up every morning and go for my usual hour long walk and then Sherman and I go to a nearby park while he runs and I watch.

I leave in a few days to cruise [once more] where life is filled with such interesting questios as: "What will they serve for lunch?" "Is there a spare treadmill in the gym?" and "Will I play bingo or trivia today?"

More from the land of the grass skirt and pineapple plantations

Genie