Travel Biography - Week 14.

Before starting this week's blog, I wish to send all my condolences to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who passed away on Thursday, September 8th, 2022, at Balmoral Castle, Scotland. I wish her son, King Charles III, a long and happy reign.

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Change is inevitable.

Having visited Salt Lake City in Utah in 1977 and swam in the Great Salt Lake itself, 45 years before writing this blog, how would I feel if I were to visit the same area now? I think, pretty devastated! This was the conclusion I arrived at when I checked out the area on Google Maps before writing this blog. What I saw was that the Visitor's Centre had been demolished, along with another structure, and only the choir hall and the Temple itself remain standing. Where those buildings once stood, now, ugly crater sites are hovered over by two large cranes making up the present skyline.

However, if a couple of years from now, I returned to the city and find a couple of swish new structures that are tourist-friendly and pleasing to the eye, then there would be some justification for the redevelopment. However, a greater sense of sadness would come over me if I was to visit the lake itself. From where I stood in 1977, the water's edge would have receded as the lake shrunk, leaving the spot where I stood high and dry. Furthermore, one of the islands further out would now be the head of a peninsula.

Much of this is the fault of Man, first of all, diverting the River Jordan, one of the mountain rivers that has fed into the lake, away for industrial and domestic use. Also, the snowmelt that normally drains into the lake, is diverted for general use. Added to these, climate change is causing longer drought periods, and it's believed that the entire lake will dry out in the future unless something is done.

Likewise, Downtown Los Angeles, my next stop after a 690-mile, 10-hour overnight journey from Salt Lake City, looked different in 1995 from when it did in 1977 and 1978. New skyscrapers were added during the seventeen years that had elapsed between visits. In the seventies, there were buildings that I recognised after watching the TV cop series, Starsky & Hutch. By 1995, several other skyscrapers went up including a sky-high hotel. However, one skyscraper I recognised straightaway and has appeared on occasions in the detective cop series, the American Bank Financial Center, to me, the symbol of Downtown Los Angeles.

Downtown LA. The American Bank is on the left.

Pershing Square was another site that had changed its appearance over the years. In the seventies, it resembled an English garden with a circular fountain. By 1995, the circular fountain was dry and an ornament of some kind was built over it. It wasn't too far from here where, on a Sunday morning in 1977, I came across the First Baptist Church. I entered the church which was several floors up in what looked like an office block, but in the large auditorium, the service was good. The church might have moved to another location since then.

Disneyland, Anaheim.

I was fortunate enough to visit Disneyland four times in my lifetime. They were in 1977, 1978, 1995, and 1997. Even in the seventeen years between my visits in 1978 and 1995, I have seen some changes there. For example, the disappearance of the Sky Buckets - bucket-like cable cars that hovered some distance above ground as they moved quietly around the park and passed through the Matterhorn and the Space Mountain roller coaster rides, as well as the Inner Space Ride, and over the whole park in general, giving a panoramic view. Its disappearance by 1995, disappointed me. In the 1970s, the Sky Buckets were sponsored by Goodyear Tyres, as many more amenities in Disneyland were sponsored by private companies. Perhaps the withdrawal of such sponsorship might have led to the decline of that scenic, quiet flight. 

The whole park is divided into different themes. In the 1970s, Main Street USA, the central street lined with souvenir shops, candy stalls, and restaurants, gave access to Fantasyland, New Orleans Square, Bear Country, Adventureland, and Tomorrowland. When I returned in 1995, I saw that Mickey Mouse Toontown was added, along with Indiana Jones' Temple of Doom roller coaster.

The Matterhorn with Skybuckets, Disneyland. Taken 1977.

In 1977 and 1978, at the entry gates, a book of vouchers was purchased. The book contained vouchers marked A, B, C, D. and E. Voucher E was for wilder rides such as Space Mountain, the Matterhorn, the Submarine, and the Monorail. The others were for more tame rides, such as Snow White and Pinocchio. Theatres, where bears spoke and sang were covered by vouchers A and B. Attractions such as The Haunted Mansion and The Pirates of the Caribbean were entered with either C or D, along with the Sky Buckets. As expected, the stack of E-vouchers was the first to run out, but there were kiosks located here and there where fresh vouchers could be purchased. However, when I returned in 1995, I saw that the voucher system was no more. Instead, the entry fee covered everything.

At Disneyland, 1977.

It took me two days to explore Disneyland more thoroughly, although even then, I didn't see or experience all of it. Yet, I believe, this is the marvel of Travel. I see it as a kind of triunity - meditating in prayer inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, letting out a yell as the roller coaster car flies at high speed inside the starry darkness of Space Mountain, and enjoying the natural vistas offered on a hiking trail where my strength, energy and stamina are tested.

Some Superlatives.

In 1977, in Los Angeles, I stayed at the Hotel Madison. In the States, it wasn't unusual for hotels to be named after past Presidents. As budget hotels in America were close to the Greyhound Bus terminal, I have found that a plain room for the night, without opulence and without breakfast, seems to benefit my budget well, especially when most of my interstate travel was done at night. After arriving at my destination, sometimes early in the morning as was the case of L.A, after a wash-and-shave in the bathroom, I had collezione at the terminal cafeteria. This usually consisted of breakfast cereal, a large American apple, and a mug of coffee. Together, it was inexpensive and can be quite filling, plugging my appetite until later in the day. 

Also, I have placed Los Angeles on the travel record of superlatives. L.A. in Southern California is in Pacific Time Zone, eight hours behind British Summer Time, and until twenty years later in 1997, at nearly 6,000 miles, remained the furthest location I ever travelled from home. Los Angeles is on coordinates 34.05 N, and 118.24 W. However, the most southern point ever reached, in 1976, was Hebron, in the Middle East with a latitude of 31.32 N. Then two years later in 1978, I arrived at Miami Beach, which is 25.81 N.

Thus, until I flew to Singapore and then onward to Australia in 1997, the superlatives stood as L.A. remaining the furthest destination from home, Miami Beach the most southerly, and the most easterly being the Dead Sea at 35.47 E. The most Northerly venue visited is here in the UK, which is Dunnet Head, at 58.40 N, near John O'Groats on the north Scottish coast, and this record was set in 1990.

Universal Studios, Hollywood.

The other venue I spent the day in 1977 was Universal Studios in Hollywood. This local bus trip included a stroll along Hollywood Boulevard, made famous by the handprints of well-known celebrities set permanently in cement. Admission into the studios includes a circuit ride in the Glamour Tram, and the props for such movies as The Ten Commandments, the Bridge of the River Kwai, Jaws and many others, including Westerns and city-based dramas, were all shown to us as the tram glided noiselessly through. Buildings that remain permanently uninhabited and used only for outdoor shooting, although a person can be filmed entering or exiting the same prop, as all indoor filming is done elsewhere. The whole setup, in my opinion, is very clever indeed, the filming of the world-of-make-believe where the viewer would never guess that the actor talking inside a room is not in the same building he walked into a moment earlier.

Props at Universal Studios, Hollywood.

The whole set-up was rather amusing - if only! Supposing the movie Ben Hur, a Roman drama, based on the time of Christ, of two former friends turned enemies, a Roman commander named Messala and a rich Jew named Ben Hur and includes the famous chariot race where Hur defeats Messala. And across the arena, a 1977 horseless Glamour Tram passes by, unnoticed by the film crew.

The Glamour Tram at the Red Sea prop.

Furthermore, I wondered whether the Glamour Tram would ever be unintentionally shot while the film was being made. The same applies to westerns or war films. Two rivals in a western settlement draw their guns for a shootout, when in the background, a tram, full of tourists, can be seen gliding silently behind a gap in the props. If only. Indeed, if only. I'm sure the world would be a more amusing place to live!

The Bridge of the River Kwai prop.

Los Angeles was the apex of the whole holiday, even if it's a massive urban sprawl. The original idea of setting foot in the USA was to be in the same city where my 1970s heroes, Starsky & Hutch were filmed. I knew perfectly well that I would never see those two detectives in the flesh. I had never expected to. Yet, the whole trip has given me the satisfaction of setting foot in their territory, seeing for myself the very sights these two were so familiar with. Also, becoming familiar with the city centre itself, especially around Pershing Square and Broadway nearby, with a walk into one of the covered markets alive with sellers and buyers. As for the coast, in 1977, I didn't make it. Not that I couldn't, but I was already intrigued - and very privileged - to walk the streets of Downtown Los Angeles, Disneyland and Hollywood. But as we shall see, Both Long Beach and Santa Monica were on the table.

That evening, after vacating my room, I boarded the Greyhound Americruiser for another overnight journey, this time to San Francisco.

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Next Week, I meet an Italian friend in Northern California.