A Second Digression: A State of Confusion.

Oh god I can't cope...

IIIIIIIIIIIIIttttttt'ssssssssssss working-g-g-g-g-g-g

Oh gosh, I'm sorry deb. Taken over your thread. Didn't mean to...

<creeps away>

Nah - it was the inner bowels thing that did it...

how can you take over a digression thread? One thing I have loved, as an habitue of the first, oh, twenty, of the threads, was the flights of tangential fancy, and I think we need more of that here, not less, though I speak sans authority..

Also, north north California is nice too..

Anything that involves inner bowels (and their movements) is when I generally start to feign attention and then walk away slowly but surely.

Piffka: Do you think that there are many schoolbuses for sale? Did he have to get a special license to drive?

Osso: I'd like to see Northern Northern California too; all the landscape, seascape and beauty without... South Californianness. How long have you been living there?

Incidentally, what would you describe as Northern Northern California? I know someone living up in Santa Rosa who likes it there...

Actually, north north California looks almost nothing like south south California, except that they border the same Ocean. To see the southern California seascape without all the southern California-ness you should drive the coast highway between, say San Luis Obispo and Monterey, and stop a lot. (Keeping in mind that accommodations should be booked inadvance in Big Sur in the summer...)

Thanks for the advice, Patio; I'll probably be seeing both, though, but I'll make sure that I find out that route and go through that. Why do so many people frequent Big Sur? Because of Kerouac, or just because it's a nice place to visit?

Hey Drom I notice you have a yen to relocate to Uzbekistan - or did a page back. Samarkand is a wonderful place, great people and fantastic market. Beautiful square with turquoise domes etc. And unspoilt, and cheap. Just a very long way from the sea, if that worries you. Not very near Afghanistan unless you're in the bit that is!

Clary-- you're right; Samarkand looks amazing. When did you go there? Some of the places in which you have ended up are amazing..



I might just buy a few houses around the globe and then start an eccentric travel business for those who don't want the average holiday .

Spectacularly, singularly beautiful. Henry Miller lived there, by the way. Kerouac just visited and drank.

That Cappadoccia house was a charmer..

I worry about the Belize one, re the property being buildable. Percolations tests are routine here since we have several areas of high water table.. thus sewage disposal is a problem in those. People have to build what they call Wisconsin mounds, which involve having a pump bring the effluent liquid up to filter gradually down through the mound. These mounds tend to look like elephants lined up lying down end to end and covered with blankets.

The Travel destination/several houses idea sounds neat though.

I live in Humboldt County, which is a large county including miles and miles of redwood forest. I live in Eureka, a Victorian-built seaport about a hundred miles south of Oregon, about 4 hours north of Santa Rosa - all a stunningly beautiful drive.

I love all of California, including southern. I don't know the east side of the state very well though.

ah yes I shall never forget the nude beaches of Humboldt County.

The nude beaches of Humboldt county? That sounds like quite a story, Dys! Funnily enough, I've never been on a nude beach, as... well... weighty Austrian tourists bearing themselves have never quite been my thing.



You are right about Big Sur, patiodog; it looks amazingly beautiful. When I do get going on this mini Odyssey, I probably will be sleeping in the van to cut down on costs- and partly because I have always had an aversion to hôtels, Bed and Breakfasts, everything, probably stemming from the fact that, the first time I had to stay in a hotel (grotty, sterile, knick-knack-filled B&B) was not a nice experience at all (my great-grand-mother was dying.) Even when I sped around Europe, I slept on the trains (or tried to, whilst trying to remain vigilant- which is hard to do when asleep.)

Osso, what exactly would you have to have done if you had bought into the Cappadoccia house? Thanks for the information about sewage; unfortunately, I would have to get someone in to do that. I won't go buy blindly; there are a few other interesting (built) properties that are not that expensive too. I'd love to skit around from place to place, but I would have to wait to see whether the play and writing itself could bring enough money to maintain that kind of lifestyle.

As for where you live... it looks amazing! Lots of places and landscape caught my eye, especially the pink house.



It sounds like a good place in which to be situated, Osso- both in terms of surroundings and in distances to other places, (though everyone reasonably dreams of being in Italy.)

Aha, that's three blocks from my office/gallery...

On Cappadoccia, that was a friend's idea, the friend who wants to set up an import business. Somehow I would be the point person there. (This friend has an idea a week, and didn't buy the place. And I can just picture me getting deals on imports. But, it was a nice looking house.)

Petrolia and the Lost Coast, Ferndale, Eureka, Bayside, Arcata, Trinidad, all beautiful.
The weather is a little coolish for some (50 - 65 daytime high temps, summer + winter, in my exact location, though inland 35 miles it gets to 105 in summer, and the passes have snow in winter) and the economy is weak, with the big industries, timber and fishing not what they once were, and our location
a bit inconvenient for running back and forth all the time to the SF bay area.

Me, I just like to travel. If I had my druthers, I'd still live here as a base, and travel fairly often.... my plan for when I win the lottery.

Only three blocks away? Wow. Another thing that caught my eye- apart from the bay itself- was the Old town... it does seem idyllic, but one of those places where you have to bring your own job.

I know exactly the kind of friend about whom you're talking; they have some fascinating ideas- they are always full of ideas- but rarely get around to implementing them. The friend with whom I plastered the whole of a McDonalds with flourescent orange paper and a photo of a deranged looking mutual acquaintance who went to Bristol; the friend who suggested that we go from Amsterdam to Shanghai in a truck, and sell the videotapes to Channel 4. Still, that kind of friend livens up things. Well, I always think that if it were meant to happen, it was meant to happen- and maybe some-day, if you win the lottery or if Saatchi comes knocking on your door, maybe you'll get back; do you have any plans of holidays this year? Where would you like to go next (where you haven't gone?)

I flew in the first British plane to fly from London to Samarkand - there were no steps high enough to get out of the plane, they had to improvise with some blocks of wood! It was in about 1994 i think. I didn't get to Bukhara which sounds great too. Next time...

The nude beaches here don't seem to have a lot of Austrian bears - but, then, it is a long way from Austria to Australia.

An L of a long way.....