September 22

September 22

In a few hours we will leaving LA. This morning is the coolest and wettest it has been since we arrived. But the fog is burning off and it will be hot later. There are actually dew drops on the ground. Now is the time for a walk, not in the middle of the day, when the sun is at full strength! Over the past week we have done many such walks in the canyon behind my cousins’ house. I thought I was in shape, but I guess not; the switchbacks up the side of the canyon left me breathing hard. And some people run it! I tried running up a hill once, I was exhausted at the top. Of course, the sun was hot and it was at the end of our walk.

LA is a huge, sprawling, polluted city. When we were just about to land in LA coming back from Tahiti, I got a good sense of the city. The horizon was brown with smog, and, as far as the eye could see, all was high rises. My cousins don’t actually live in LA, thank goodness. They live in Thousand Oaks, a suburb that is farther out than LA. Here, we are backing onto a canyon in one direction, and the city in the other. It is actually quite beautiful here, in a brown desert sort of way. However, heading towards LA, there is no break between the cities, they just continue on in to each other. There is no real Vancouver-style green here. Even in the more natural areas it is semi desert, at this time of year most of the plants are brown. As you drive past all the dead bits of green it reinforces the idea of pollution and waste.

We went out for dinner last night to a Sushi place that was close by. It took 10 minutes to get there. I wonder if “close” here means 10 -15 minutes away. I would say “close” is walking distance, five minutes max. in a car. Not only is time distorted, but roads are too. To get from point A to point B, you have to get on the freeway, a four lane highway, just to drive for fifteen minutes. Unless of course where you are going is in your neighborhood. The highways sides are blanketed in strip malls. Remember, this is on the outskirts of the city. The inner city of LA is a gang city. There is gang violence, and everything that follows. Inner city LA is not someplace I would like to be at night, or even in the day.

Now we are off to Arizona!