Santa Bar-bar-bar, bar-bar-bar-a

It took a few weeks, but I have finally hit a town in California that gives me the urge to stick some Beach Boys on the stereo.

Santa Barbara is a lively seaside resort. This will sound ridiculous, because it is, but it feels sort of British. As I drove in on 101 I noted the sign displaying the population. Ooh, that's less than Worthing, I thought to myself. Then, when I saw the pier, well, I suddenly felt at home. (They must be worried about the twinning potential since they insist upon calling it a wharf and let cars drive down it).

Admittedly, instead of lawn bowls or third rate putting greens, there are bikini clad beauties playing beach volleyball, and the souvenir shops are surf shops, and the food is mostly Mexican and good. Oh and the sun's shining, and the beach has sand - golden sand. And they didn't buy their palm trees on the internet. But there are enough similarities to make me feel comfortable. I like it here. Some guy is even fishing. I mean, how British is that?

As the sun tootles off and the denizens of the town apply a little apres soleil, a bizarre but not unfamiliar change occurs. People are drawn away from the beach to their homes and hotel rooms, only to re-emerge shortly after, all dressed up and apparently instantly intoxicated. Downtown throngs with people; families, tarted up girls, buttoned up chavs (I've heard more British accents here than anywhere else) and lots of Mexicans. The only section of society more heavily represented than the mariachi bands whose monotonous melancholy fills the air, are the Santa Barbara Police Department.

Maybe they're here on account of the fact that for about six blocks, downtown is bar after bar after bar. People are spilling all over the sidewalk; tourists, holidaymakers, shifty guys in hoodies. I don't see any trouble, I don't even sniff it in the air like you usually do. Maybe it's the stench of booze that masks it, or maybe having that many cops around really does work.

Or maybe there are so many of them that they just don't have anything to do. I cross the street a second before the light turns green and am pounced upon by a female police officer. I humour her aggressive tactics and do as I'm told. In an effort to assert her authority and presumably de-humanize me she makes me sit on the kerbside while she spills out the usual bullshit. It would be somewhat ironic if after a lifetime of unpunished crime I should swing for jaywalking, so I grovel my way out of her notebook.

A block or so and a few red lights later and it still feels like your average English High Street on a Saturday night. There's a pub called The James Joyce and an O'Malleys. Then it dawns on me: It's basically what Worthing, or Torquay (come on lads, comments please) would be if it had sun, sand, a Mexican population and highly strung misandrist police officers.

None of this is meant as a criticism, because I genuinely like this place. By day. By day I'm whistling Little Deuce Coup and Wouldn't it be Nice and smiling and kicking sand out of my thongs. But when darkness falls, I'm humming another Beach Boys number: In My Room. Because frankly, that's where I'd rather be.

A night on the (Floor) Tiles

I finally found somewhere to sleep the other night, once I'd got clear of Big Sur. Before even finding my room, I found the bar and relaxed out of driving mode in the only way I know how.

There were a few local drunks knocking about, the funniest of whom, a rancher, was parked resolutely at the end of the bar. In a lengthy phone call to an employee, he revealed he'd "had a few drinks" then fired him for being an "asshole" before apparently arranging to go on a fishing trip with him to Oregon. Finding himself down a cowboy, he offered the job to Anna, the bartender. When she gave him some backchat a few minutes later, he replied "You know what? You're fucking fired."

A group of far jollier drunks were attempting to play pool. When Anna took time out for a game, and it became apparent that she was an extremely good player, I swung off my stool and threw some quarters on the table. She had that confidence and assuredness around the table that only comes from being a snooker player. However, the best man doesn't always win, and I kicked her ass.

All this ended up with me sat around a huge fire in her back yard with her mom and a collection of other interesting people. We drank, told jokes (well I did) and had a lot of fun. No one really wants to start talking religion at three in the morning, but when Gillian claims to be a Lutheran Quaker, who believes in the story of creation and declares "My God is a jealous God", but when pressed reveals that she has never read the Bible, I can't help but share a few of my own views with her. I don't think they made any real impact.

The highlight of the evening were the stories that Peggy (Anna's mom) read us: tales from her childhood that she has recorded for her children. Along with three teenage friends, she would ride over to a nearby ranch to flirt with the Mexican boys. The poorest of the girls, unable to afford a horse, was saddled up on a lactating cow whose brimming udder was swinging back and forth in the dust, and the last of the group was riding a horse that no-one else wanted on account of its persistent and acute flatulence. The stories were so lucid, lively and funny, and her reading of them so wonderful, I was almost in tears.

I grabbed my camping gear out of the trunk and finally curled up in the sleeping bag on the floor. Anna's cousin Gary was on the couch, a dog had the other couch. I managed to sleep quite well for an hour or so, until a cat woke me up by licking my face, whereupon the cacophonous combination of snoring from two dogs and a drunk barmaid kept me awake until the chickens started up outside. I dozed off again just in time for Gary to have woken up and started using power tools in the back yard. A jealous God? Bloody well vindictive more like.

In the morning we discovered that a neighbour's dog had eaten a bag of peanuts we had left out, and was now shitting them out whole all around the yard. I took this as my cue to leave. Not exactly refreshed by the whole experience, but certainly amused, I threw my bedding in the back of the car, rubbed my weary eyes and, unhesitatingly, took to the road once more.

A good walk spoiled

Right, I'm back on the road. Sunday morning I roar past the miles of cars queueing up to get into Yosemite and don't stop until I hit the coast. Monterey, to be precise.

I haven't showered in days, I stink, and my feet look like Mowgli's would had he just returned from Glastonbury. I check into the Monterey Hotel, whose wi-fi network is called MoHo, which amuses me briefly before I spend the next hour scrubbing dirt from my pores.

Next morning I go for a stroll along the wharf, and head up to Cannery Row, the setting of the Steinbeck novel (they changed the name from its original one to cash in on the notoriety). Suddenly I am struck by an ungodly stench. Large colonies of sealions are basking in the sun, and they smell like a load of unwashed dogs. Disgusting. I quicken my pace.

I wish I hadn't, because Cannery Row is a shameless, tacky, cheap experience that I would sooner forget. Everything is faux. The Cannery Row Brewing Company is housed in an old brick building, the cracked and peeling white letters spelling out its name, adding Established 2010 at the end. I'd be getting on the phone to Dulux for a refund. Every other company has Steinbeck in its name. The Steinbeck Plaza, a collection of bargain bucket souvenir shops peddling sub standard merchandise, would surely have the great man spinning in his sardine can.

I press on, heading further west to the exclusive Pebble Beach area. Through the open car window I hear the uniquely glorious sound of a golf ball being driven off the tee, and my mind flashes to my clubs, gathering dust in the garage back home. 17 mile drive is a toll road that loops around the golf courses - ten bucks to drive on it but you can knock it off the check if you stop to eat. I choose to lunch at the Stillwater Bar and Grill that overlooks the 18th green of the course that staged this year's US Open. The food was average, the view better.

The unmistakable smell of money continues in the heady little cluster of old cottages, antique shops, art galleries and jewellers called Carmel. The contrast with Cannery Row couldn't be any clearer. If money is indeed the root of evil, then there must be some bad ass people living in this little town. I would still prefer it over the ostentatious tat of the former any day of the week though. I speak to two ladies in consecutive shops, both with incurably posh English accents that their respective twenty years in California have failed to tarnish. Evil to the core.

Having narrowly escaped Carmel without shedding a large amount of cash on an exceptional photograph by a guy named Robert Taylor, I hit the road once more. The stretch of highway south of Carmel is the famous Big Sur, where 5,000 foot mountains collapse into the sea. There is NOTHING on this stretch of road. Towns marked on the map are in fact single buildings. It is wild, remote and that fog is rolling in again.

It's getting late, I have no chance of a campsite, so the old hotel budget is going to get a stretching again, if only I can find one. In my rear view mirror I see a great sky developing. When I finally get a chance to pull over, the mist encroaches, and the sun is just a bleached light trying to shine through the cloud. I think I might prefer it that way.

Yosemite

Yosemite National Park covers 1,200 square miles. In that vast area, the Sierra Nevada mountains have been carved by glaciers over millions of years, creating the most incredible landscapes. Tourists flock to Yosemite Valley, home of famous rock formations like Half Dome and El Capitano, as well as numerous waterfalls that are a little tame this time of year.

Whilst the Valley is the centre of the park; its most famous and photographed asset, it is but a tiny fraction of the whole. Part of the wonder of this place is the variety of its geography; the granite valleys, sequoia groves, pine forests, lakes, meadows, rockfalls and peaks are stunning contrasts to one another, and all in constant flux.

Almost all of the park is wilderness waiting to be explored on foot, but with time short, I have to drive along the handful of roads. The view points are pretty crowded, but you can get some nice shots if you wait long enough. Whilst the Valley was spectacular, it was very busy, and this is definitely a place where nature rewards solitude. I hunt out a few unlikely trails and get to wander on my own.

Except I'm not entirely alone. Fifty yards away to my left, among the trees, there is a bear. Contrary to my expectations, I don't shit myself, run, or pull out the swiss army knife (maybe if it had been a cougar). I actually just feel privileged. The bear and I stand and size each other up; thoughtful and silent. Photography as art is off the agenda now, this is photography as proof. I don't lug a zoom around with me, and after the dog debacle, now is not the time to practice my animal portraiture technique up close, so this rather crappy image will have to do:

Whilst sizing up the bear, I am being ravaged by mosquitoes from the nearby lake, and therein lies another aspect of Yosemite's wonder. The spectrum of beauty, colour and pure unadulterated nature stretches from the great to the infinitesimally small. Vibrant meadow flowers to giant sequoias; striped baby squirrels (far too quick to photograph) to bloody big bears. At night the sky is free from all light pollution and you can look up at the tiny distant suns coruscating above the huge trees. This place has it all under one clear, star studded roof.

Every time I pick up the camera I'm thinking about what Ansel Adams said, not that it helps. I'm also thinking how I would like to convey the relationship between man and nature, and the solitude that I have been seeking out. Some of them I felt were black and white when I took them. In others the tones are so striking I can't bring myself to take them away. None of the colours have been enhanced.

Of all the places I have been this year, Yosemite is perhaps the most impressive. I know I'm beginning to sound like a fully paid up tree hugger these days, but in Yosemite more than anywhere else, you really do sense your place in the world, and yield to it. That the park exists, and that its wilderness is protected and preserved is thanks largely to a naturalist and author named John Muir. His words, more than my pictures, scratch beneath the surface of this extraordinary place:

As long as I live, I’ll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I’ll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I’ll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can.

And that's exactly what Yosemite felt like to me: the heart of the world. Do everything within your power to visit before you die.

The Art of Photography

Permit me a slight, but relevant detour. I would like to talk very briefly of a gentleman named Ansel Adams. A photographer who shot on cumbersome large format cameras, turned developing images into an art form, and who achieved the greatest fame for his extraordinary pictures of Yosemite National Park.

I place this image of him here in almost certain breach of numerous copyrights:

In Yosemite Valley the Adams family (not that one, grow up) run a small gallery showcasing original photographs. I only just manage to keep the AmEx in my pocket. But one thing in that gallery completely blows me away. It stops me dead in my tracks, more than any image I have ever seen. From a photographer, a rare commodity - words:

To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces and record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or are latent in all things. Impression is not enough. Design, style, technique - these too are not enough. Art must reach further than impression or self-revelation. Art, said Alfred Stieglitz, is the affirmation of life. And life; or its eternal evidence, is everywhere.

Some photographers take reality as the sculptors take wood and stone and upon it impose the dominations of their own thought and spirit. Others come before reality more tenderly and a photograph to them is an instrument of love and revelation. A true photograph need not be explained, nor can be contained in words.

Expressions without doctrine, my photographs are presented here as ends in themselves, images of the endless moments of the world. I dedicate them to the memory of Alfred Stieglitz.

There's not a lot to add to that. Every time you raise the camera to your eye, you have the opportunity to scratch beneath the surface.

Old or new?

San Francisco is rightly acclaimed for the quality of its restaurants. It's a foodie town through and through. Local, fresh, organic. Much of this ethos can be traced back to a lady named Alice Waters, who opened a place called Chez Panisse in neighbouring Berkeley back in 1971.

Chez Panisse is not the best restaurant in the world (Michelin gives it one star), but it stands for something greater than just the food it serves. Local produce, grown or reared sustainably, cooked simply but thoughtfully. It epitomises the Ballymaloe approach to food that I had drilled into me in Ireland last year; indeed Alice Waters and Darina Allen are old friends. Not that that gets me a table of course, I have to settle for lunch in the 'cafe'.

It's a lovely space and there is an air of casual professionalism among the many staff. The kitchen is open along the corridor, and fresh produce is on display everywhere. The bread is excellent as you'd expect. I am tingling in anticipation. Pizzetta with zucchini, squash blossoms, pine nuts and pecorino is delicious; thin, crisp and bursting with flavour. But it is too big. It's enough for two, and a place that prizes its ingredients so highly should ration them accordingly.

Wood oven roasted albacore with Meyer lemon, fennel, fingerling potatoes, black olives and aioli looks wonderful. The fish is so flavourful, and the olive tapenade is rich and dense and incredible. I can probably take or leave the aioli but it reminds me instantly of Ballymaloe. The fennel is soft and buttery, but the thyme stalks it was marinaded with are still in there and you have to pick them out of your mouth. And the potatoes are sort of luke warm. Which lets down an otherwise splendid dish.

Dessert of Summer berry sherbet with Middleton Gardens berry compote and langues de chat is fantastic. The flavour bursts out of the dish, the balance of sweetness is perfect, and the strawberries are the finest I have tasted. The experience is a good one, the menu extraordinary but a couple of little things let the place down. I'll try the restaurant next time.

Not content with one exuberant meal in a day, Carrie and I have dinner at Gary Danko - the newer side of San Francisco dining. There's a two month waiting list but we sneak a spot at the bar. It's dark inside, each table has its sense of privacy preserved and there's the air of important things being discussed, or illicit liaisons being born. It feels like a local place too. Very San Francisco.

The staff are slick and friendly. I want to rebuke them for that, but they get it just right. We're waiting a while, and they bring us buckwheat blinis with smoked salmon and caviar that just don't get any better. The menu is massive. All the appetisers can be sized as entrees, meaning there are thirty odd dishes to choose from. I hate this kind of menu. It smacks of arrogance (how can a kitchen cover so many bases) and a broad, vagueness of style. And it's impossible to choose what you want.

We get a perfect gazpacho while we think about it. The Beet Salad with Goat Cheese, Caramelized Nectarines, Pecans and Zatar Oil is fresh and zingy. I don't normally like ring moulds but it looks good. The Lobster salad with avocado, roasted tomatoes, shaved fennel with Meyer lemon and tarragon vinaigrette sounds like quite a mouthful. It arrives as a brilliant and complex balance of flavours - the vinaigrette the crowning glory.

The Roasted Pork Belly and Tenderloin with Potato-Ramp Purée, Peas, Bacon, Pickled Onions and Maple Glaze is superb - soft, succulent belly and firm but tender loin. As a dish, it just works. The Lemon Pepper Duck Breast with Duck Hash, Carrot-Ginger Purée and Brandied Cherries must surely be too much. Duck breast and duck hash? But yes, he's nailed it again. It is devastatingly good. The composition of the dishes is most impressive - near perfect combinations of flavour colour and texture, in perfect proportion.

The cheeseboard kicks ass and the chocolate souffle is delicious if that's your thing. The wine list? It's a telephone directory. I was tempted by the 1990 Margaux that passed my lips a year ago and still lingers there if I think about it hard enough, but at $3,400 a bottle, we give it a miss.

I want to hate a guy who has an eponymous restaurant staffed with slick, friendly people who deferentially refer to him as Chef Danko, where there are thirty main courses to choose from and a two month waiting list for a table. But I can't. Because he pulls it off. Brilliantly. It is very, very good.

Out with the old, in with the new.

The Streets of San Francisco

San Francisco, perhaps more than any other city I have visited, feels moulded by the peculiar geography of its unlikely location. The topography dominates; the impossibly steep streets of movie fame, a huge bridge, a sinister rock in the middle of a bay.

I've seen Bullitt and The Rock and those posters they used to sell in Athena, so I know all about the streets. I'm driving in on 101, which is actually Lombard Street. And I start going up. It is ridiculous. I can't see over the bonnet (hood) of the car, it's so steep. And at the apex - a stop sign. Like I had a choice! The road levels out, then it's onwards and upwards once more. At the very top, with North Beach (there's no beach) stretching out, the road switches back upon itself amidst the vibrant flowers that line its path. At the foot of this bizarre road, hoards of tourists block your way with their cameras.

The next day I ride the cable car across town; the most archaic form of transport surviving in a modern city. Although they're used mainly by tourists, plenty of commuters hop on, and the conductors, whilst hamming it up for the foreigners, omit to request their fares. The car is controlled by hand, no mean feat on some of the slopes - the guy driving ours was hanging off the lever at times. Impossible to imagine Transport for London allowing this kind of thing to continue - you definitely can't get on one in a wheelchair.

The slopes aren't everywhere - downtown is fairly flat, rising to a few stiff peaks here and there. The streets and city blend together, but it's a pretty blend. Flowers add splashes of colour to the scene, and little alleyways disappear between the office blocks. People have that slight edge to their movement that comes with living in a city. They drive a little more aggressively and walk with purpose. Occasionally you might catch them kicking back for a minute or two, but somehow, when they do, they seem to just blend into their surroundings.

The waterfront is a busy stretch, from the ferry building that houses a farmers' market, all the way up to the tourist hell of Fisherman's Wharf. The east stretch is calm and peaceful, aside from the joggers, but the northern part is like Leicester Square. There are discount camera stores, shops selling tatty souvenirs and guys doing the old gold or silver robot routine. I catch a few of them having a break - upon closer inspection they turn out to be three big black brothers, and relaxing over a coffee they're shouting to one another about mother fu*kers, hoes and bitches. It's hilarious. They spot me taking their picture and dish out some vintage gangster rap abuse.

I like it here. There's an energy and a vivacity emanating from the streets. And when the daily sea fret clears, normally around lunchtime, it is a truly beautiful place to be. The city falls neatly into its little neighbourhoods. In the quieter ones, the people are really friendly and smile at one another on the street (or maybe they just like the dog I'm walking). The architecture is stunning at times, it has a real Regency feel, and with some of those slopes, well it's almost like Hove, actually.

On my first morning I am taken aback. A siren sounds out over the city and the scariest, most apocalyptic voice you can imagine booms out: "THIS IS A TEST. THIS IS A TEST OF THE EARLY WARNING SYSTEM". I imagine they're shooting some disaster movie, and then I remember. The city shaped by the land it stands on, stands on shaky ground. The San Andreas fault runs directly beneath, a kind of inverted Sword of Damacles hanging under the whole show. Maybe the Streets of San Francisco are not so safe after all.