California Dreamin'

Every now and then I get a real yearning to go back to California.

Unusually, this doesn't happen when I'd expect it, i.e. when it's cold and windy and wet outside. Rather, it happens as soon as I catch the first glimpse of summer; when the air warms by that single essential degree marking the difference between spring and summer; when the smell of flowers hangs heavy in the air; when I feel the sun warming the stones under my feet and the bones under my skin; this is when I long to be back in California.

A cloudless sky and an endless horizon ahead of me as I drive home; the outline of the city against a backdrop of hazy mountains; sunshine glinting off a beat-up Ford pickup ahead of me on the motorway; these are the things that remind me of California.

It literally wrenches my heart. The longing to be in California grips me and leaves me breathless, aching, unsatisfied.

I have only ever been to California three times, but each single time was such an incredible experience that I have never forgotten it. The first time I visited was in 2000, and, bless me father for have sinned, it's been a year and a half since my last visit. Far, far too long.

In my three visits to California, I have driven the Pacific Coast Highway from just south of Portland, OR, to just north of Tijuana, Mexico. I have driven through incredible redwood forests and along roads clinging to the sides of mountains, as the surf pounded the rocks hundreds of feet below. I distinctly remember my first glimpse of the Pacific ocean in Oregon - grey and vicious and angry. I disctinctly remember the first time I swam in the Pacific in San Diego - clear and blue and warm. And very salty, as I discovered when I was dragged under by a massive wave.

I have cruised along beach boulevards, with the top down on my car, honking the horn at the glistening muscle men and gazing upwards at the clear blue sky through the almost-touching, impossibly tall palm trees. I have made the road trip from San Francisco to San Diego three times, and each time is more wonderful than the last. I have driven through Baja Mexico, from Tijuana to Ensenada and beyond. From poverty to paradise and back to poverty again.

There are some moments of my three trips that are etched indelibly in my memory. Driving through the desert for days on end, with nothing but Pink Floyd playing on the only station my broken radio could pick up. Since then, every time I hear Dark Side of the Moon I get a shiver down my spine.

I remember my big gay weekend in San Francisco, celebrating the successful open houses of our photographer and artist friends by getting pissed on Mojito's in a trendy bar on Castro Street and going to a Gay Glo show. Buff naked men in neon paint - nice!

I remember making plans to set up camp in a pink glittery tent at Burning Man the following summer... Unfortunately those plans were never realised.

I remember sitting in a beer garden near the Golden Gate Bridge, drinking pitchers of Bud with hairy bikers and gazing up at the stars. Watching Podge & Rodge on DVD in an apartment overlooking the bay.

Driving through wine country, with vineyard after vineyard rolling out all around us, windows rolled down, hand surfing in the warm breeze.

Hanging out in La Jolla, giggling at the seals and eating giant freshly-baked cookies from the local café. Drinking Hang Ten beer with the surfers who brewed it in their bar near the beach whilst eating BBQ shark and fish tacos and saying "Dude!" a lot. Walking in on a bizarre speed dating session in an Irish bar in the Gas Lamps, San Diego, where all the women looked like Cindy Crawford and all the men looked like George Costanza.

I remember Ozzfest in the desert. The dry, baking heat that you only get in the Californian desert. The weird, yet undefinable differences between American and European music festivals. Trying to avoid staring at the tattooed gang members down from LA for the day, as they walked around in their uniform of baggy blue jeans, white wifebeater vest and numerous bullet holes and scars. Doling out suncream to sunburnt teenagers because seemingly I'm the only person in America who brings suncream to a festival in the desert in California. Watching the dust bowl develop and envelope the mosh pit whilst Rob Zombie pounded the stage in front of us. Ten bucks for a beer... some things never change.

Drinking beers and watching the wannabes at the Rainbow Bar & Grill on Sunset Strip, the birthplace of my kind of music! Waking up in my hotel, opening the curtains and feeling my stomach flip with excitement and my hangover rapidly disappear as I see the Hollywood sign right in front of me. Getting lost whilst driving around southern LA, taking a wrong turn and ending up in a bad neighbourhood. Burning rubber as we sped out of there, laughing with relief and near hysteria, stopping only to pick up a case of cold beers as we raced toward the beach.

Sipping coffee on a patio café in the morning. Soaking up the sunshine at the beach in the afternoon as we spot the Irish students on their summer visa. Hot, sultry nights shooting pool at the local bar and sitting on the steps outside the apartment, sipping beers and watching the world go by.

California has everything I want. Mountains. Sea. Sunshine. The laid back attitude. The hopefulness that anyone can be someone if you just work hard enough.

I need to go back!

So, if anyone has two round-trip flights from Manchester to Los Angeles that they're not using, let me know...

In the meantime, I'm hoping this longing will wear off soon, because I can't get to California until next year at the earliest. It's due to rain tomorrow, so if that doesn't shift it my trip to the oil refinery north of Grimsby on Friday will surely do it!