Goodbye USA see you in Feb 2018
Having spent quite some time finally getting my blog up to date yesterday, 30th October, by the time I got to Griffith Park it was 3:30 and I had no real energy to go climbing up the hill for the view, although I did have a bash. In total I did 11638 steps just 5 miles. But I really haven’t done enough walking this week at all. Partly because it’s not a particularly good area to be walking around and partly because I was chauffeured a lot by Elizabeth. Although Disney saw us achieve 6.8 miles in a day. Having decided to return from Griffith Park, I thought I’d go via MacArthur Park, made famous by Richard Harris a lifetime ago. I had bought a day card on the Metro, so I hopped off there and took a very short walk in the park just across the road. There were so many seagulls there, and to be honest the place smelled awful because of it. There were quite a few geese but not many humans. Altogether a complete disappointment so I left and thought I would get the bus back, even managed to work out which side of the road quite easily. It was a two bus journey, but I walked the second half and got a photo of my nearest healthy coffee shop on the way.
I had a quiet evening and was expecting a new guest to turn up at some point in the Air BNB. The landlord had gone away but he has everything set up very easily to let yourself in and info about where everything is readily available. I went to my room about 10 and eventually heard the new lodger moving around in his room. I was trying to settle down to sleep about 12 after I had checked into my flight when he started making a lot of noise coming downstairs twice to the bathroom like an elephant, clearing his throat constantly and then it sounded like he was reorganising the whole room. When I say reorganising it was almost as if furniture was being moved around. It then occurred to me I was sleeping in a stranger’s house, who wasn’t there, and another stranger was there too and for all I knew he could be an axe murderer. So it was two thirty in the morning before I got to sleep, I can get a bit silly sometimes I know, but when those sorts of thoughts come into your head it’s hard to shift them straight away.
Anyway I am safe and all packed the taxi is coming for me at 7:15pm . I fly to Fiji at 11:30pm. Hopefully! So just bring the old blog completely up to date, it’s a while since I have managed that. So below are my final photographs from the USA.
A couple more short anecdotes from my time here.
I had to go and change a ticket at the Greyhound Station as I had booked the wrong date for a trip on my next visit in February. Whilst I was there paying $20 for my mistake, a girl came up to the next till and said she had missed her bus what did she need to do. She was told all she had to do was pay $20 to change her ticket. I tried to remain calm having had to pay $150+ for a new ticket when the bus left without stopping for me in St George. This morning I have written to the President of Greyhound to tell him exactly what I think of his service, which isn’t much. I imagine I won’t even get a response, but they simply cannot have one rule for one and another for another. I will let you know how I get on, but don’t hold your breath.
The other thing I wanted to tell you about was when I was in the garden the other day, I spotted three hummingbirds and I spent the whole afternoon trying to photograph or video them. They were so beautiful with the dark green backs and long beaks, but so tiny too, and when they flew past you heard a hum from them as they whizzed around.
That’s it signing off from the USA. See you in Fiji.
