There are no boring cities

The best part of my "trip to LA" is how little time I spent in LA. Overall, it was about eight hours south of the San Gabriels (mostly at LAX) and six in North Hollywood. The day we arrived, we had hours to kill before the remaining Brit Twits arrived and Father Chauffeur could drive us all back to Erema Vallis; poor monshu had to wait around the airport to ensure our rendezvous whereas I got to run off to Venice Beach with the fantastic ladytiamat, who could transform a trip to Bakersfield into a good time.

Nevertheless, I spoke up in the city's defence when someone tried to say there was "nothing to see there". princeofcairo has done the legwork to confirm what I kind of figured out during my tour of Europe: It's all a matter of knowing where to go and being open to what you find. If you decide in advance that nothing there is interesting, nothing will be. You won't find any photos of the Arc de Triomphe or London Bridge in my albums; you will find a mailbox set inside a brick wall in Bangor, a street sign for "Needless Alley" in Birmingham, the unimaginably long escalator down into the Prague subway.

The only other time I've been to LA, I had the good luck to go with Nuphy (born in West Hollywood, raised in Sherman Oaks) and get ferried around by his cousin, bartender to the Elks. The drive down Sunset was a trip back in time--I even saw the newstand where he bought his first pornography! We ended up dining among bulemic chiasaurs of Santa Monica and among his crazy relatives in the Valley.

It would've taken more creativity than I think I had to invest to make Friday's trip to Palmdale--a sprawl so anonymous that the streets are numbered and the avenues named with letters--into a highlight. But the presence of Boon, monshu, Mater, and Pater made it more fun than it had any right being. Pater was craving Mexican food, so we got a recommendation at the Rite-Aid and ended up at El Toreo on 35th & S chowing down on carnitas and chiles rellenos (and paying for it later). And the presence of the Lads at a Bennigan's clone called Coco's for dinner our first day was almost alchemical (though equal credit belongs to the efforts of our waiter Rosemary, a Korean woman who thought she was Hispanic).

Fun with British people: Mad dogs and Englishmen

Can someone explain to me how I can spend four days in the Mojave desert and come back with a head cold?

Everyone kept apologising for the unseasonably hot and humid out there (one priest accused the visiting Samoan contingent of bringing "island weather" with them). I kept having to explain how much of a relief highs in the 80s with 50% humidity were from Chicago. Moreover, I learned to hike in Missouri. Once you've walked twenty miles during the dog days of a St. Louis summer, not even the Mojave seems unbearable.

My biggest problem, in fact, is that the weather never feels as hot as it is. The dryness spoofs my senses and too often I end up not drinking as much water as I should. In Antelope Valley, there were also a dearth of shade, joshua trees and junipers being the only large plants over most of the area, and a surfeit of still air. I can survive the beastliest weather as long as there's a good stiff breeze--and why wouldn't a barren plateau be windy? Until the thunderstorms hit, though, there wasn't enough wind to turn over a tumbleweed, much less send it scuttling.

Unfortunately, I missed the skinny dipping trip. The Great Goddess and her baby-faced monks, the Reverend Beebe and His Lordship, stripped down at a swimming hole in the Devils' Punch Bowl (and had the frightening sunburns to prove it). When Boon, Mater, and I walked that trail, Pater and monshu were waiting for us back at the parking lot, so there wasn't time to frolic in the creek (not that I can really imagine Mater stripping down to her knickers in our presence anyway).