Rhonda Bracey: At Random

The cry rang out and the pseudo and real Aussies (four of us out of nearly 50) gathered by the pool at the Wyndham and availed ourselves of the free drinks from MadCap Software… which is what any good Aussie does! Aussie animal stickers and tattoos were attached to various parts of people's anatomy and clothing, and Vegemite was refused by those who'd tasted it before and eagerly snatched up by those who hadn't – boy! are they in for a surprise or what?

After cleaning out the bar of the freebies (as all good Aussies do), we headed in to the balmy Palm Springs night and found ourselves in the Los Casitas (sp?) Mexican restaurant just up the road. Pitchers of margaritas were swiftly brought to the tables to quench our thirst (it was a long walk… NOT!), along with corn chips and salsa. Not long after, some quesadillas found their way on to the tables too, and later some prawn (real Aussies don't call them "shrimp"), chicken and beef fajitas. And all along the other people in the restaurant (poor souls!) found themselves subjected to the rousing chorus of "Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi Oi Oi!"… often!

After sorting out the bill (whatever it was + 17% gratuity divided by 45 people), we stalked into the night and crossed the road to the "Lost Highway" karaoke bar. More drinks were consumed, more rousing shouts went up… And some of us who really do want to attend the Wednesday sessions, slipped quietly in to the night and to bed.

Others – perhaps not so dedicated… or perhaps just drunk – kicked on. At least one person didn't return until 2:15am, just a little the worse for wear (you know who you are!). We'll see today who is hoarse and who's not there!

Well, yesterday (Sunday) was a BIG day for me. For years I have not been able to get on such things as ski chairlifts, let alone cable cars. But yesterday I actually got on the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway and took it to the top without collapsing in a screaming heap! Of course, having good friends and my partner with me helped a lot, and there were times when it was a little scary and I closed my eyes (like each time we went through one of the pylon stations and the car got a bit of a sway up).

But I did it! And enjoyed it – probably because the views were absolutely fantastic and the weather was brilliant and there was no wind. It was a great ride and I highly recommend it. Not bad from someone who's usually pretty phobic about these sorts of things!

On Saturday night, we stayed at the Marquis Villas in Palm Springs. HUGE! Full size kitchen with all amenities, 1 bedroom with 2 double beds, a large living/dining room with a double sofa bed, 2 bathrooms (one was massive), walk-in robes and lots of storage space, a wide balcony, and a great view of the mountains. Definitely a great choice for 5 people and all their stuff – good one, Sue!

On Sunday we moved into the conference hotel – the Wyndham Resort, Palm Springs. Well, how do you compare these two places? On price, the Marquis Villas was more expensive ($225 for the one night… but we split that between 5 people so that was very affordable), but the Wyndham at $159 a night (conference rate) is very pricey for what you get… or, more to the point, don’t get. No fridge (you have to collect ice from way down the hallway) or mini bar (not that I ever get anything from the mini bar); two double beds that are really slightly oversized singles and couldn’t fit two normal sized people; high-speed internet access (but only if you have wireless; dial-up is still dial-up and slow); car parking out in the open at $5 per day (the Villas had free underground secure parking); a bathroom that looks tired and has a shower faucet that takes some fiddling to get right, with a showerhead that spits water at you and a drain that doesn’t drain properly, and a vanity area that fits two toilet bags at a pinch with no room for anything else. The Marquis Villas beats it hands down. And to be honest, for the level of facilities, I think that the Motel 6 in Paso Robles was better value for money at $42 a night. The facilities in the room at the Wyndham offer very little more than we got at that Motel 6… for more than three times the price. And remember, we’re getting the conference rate, not the standard rate.

The drive from Paso Robles to Palm Springs takes in two of my favourite areas of California. The rolling green hills (at least at this time of the year!) of the country in and around Paso, and the Mojave Desert. Yes, California has some wonderful countryside and scenery (Yosemite, Big Sur, gold country), but these are perhaps two areas that aren’t on the tourist trail. The hills of Paso reminded me a lot of the Bridgetown area in south west Western Australia. Similar climate and landscape, but Bridgetown doesn’t have earthquakes!

It took about 6 hours to drive to Palm Springs from Paso. We took a minor detour off Highway 58 into Mojave itself to have lunch at a place we’ve stopped at quite a few times now. Primo Burgers (near the aeroplane ‘graveyard’) make a fine burger… and it’s cheap too!

[written Saturday morning; not posted until Monday]

Well, we’ve been in California a week now. The first few days we stayed with my uncle (well, cousin x times removed, but as Bill’s 82, I call him my uncle out of respect) in Corona Del Mar near Newport Beach. The weather was pretty miserable – rained most days, cool and cloudy the rest. So much for “It never rains in Southern California”! I was able to get a 30GB MP3 player (Creative Zen) and have loaded up some talking books by Bill Bryson onto it. So far I’ve listened to a few chapters of “I’m a stranger here myself” – his experience with the car rental agency almost mirrored ours… hilarious!

The last two nights we’ve been in Paso Robles, California (wine country north of LA; just north of where the movie “Sideways” was filmed and located). Our friends there – John and Suzie – have moved into a new house from their 23 acre property outside town. The new place is much closer to town, and on an acre. We had a superb dinner with them both nights – Suzie’s a GREAT cook – and there’s always good wine and lots of laughs. And last night we were joined by the new owners of their old place – Lewis (sp?) and Kate from Boston. Lovely couple. John opened one of his very special wines – a 1981 Smith & Hook. It was brilliant! Yesterday we went with Suzie and looked at a new house in Paso Robles up for raffle – neat cellar! Then called in on Jon and Mary who have a vineyard in the hills near Paso. It was good to see them again; poor Jon was having to deal with some plumbing issues under the house!

Today we drive to Palm Springs from Paso Robles and will have an interesting evening sharing a room with three others! Getting a one night bed in Palm Springs on a weekend is almost impossible so Sue (from San Diego) has organised a 2x Queen bed villa unit for us, with a rollaway. So there’ll be five of us – two from the San Diego area (Sue and Dave), one from Boston (Char) and us two from Perth. Lucky we’ll all know each other pretty well! On Sunday we move to our respective rooms at the conference venue – the Wyndham Resort – so we’ll be able to spread out a little more.

After more internet research on phones, I decided to take the "I don't care if I throw it away" approach. And so bought a cheap TracFone from a Rite-Aid pharmacy and a 100 min pre-paid card. All up – just under $80 US. Phone is a Nokia which cost $40 US. Everything is activated now and the phone works… well, it receives calls – haven't tried making a call yet. And I can reactivate it and get a new number again next year… at least that's what the rules are right now.

My first day in LA has not been a good one. OK, so there's the almost 30 hours now without sleep thing, but that's not what made it bad… that just meant that I wasn't able to deal with life's little challenges as easily as usual.

The day started off well enough. We arrived in LA on time, and it was only 45 mins between touching down, clearing immigration, collecting luggage, clearing customs and being out on the pavement awaiting the rental car shuttle. So far, so good…

But then drama #1 happened.

I'd done my research of rental car prices and found that for the size of car we wanted and the number of days, Thrifty were by far the cheapest of the national/international brands. So I'd booked a full-size car online through their website. We get to the counter and the booking is in the system – this is a good thing. Then the $175 fee for the 10 days magically becomes close to $600!!! For the first time we had to pay insurance (never had to with Hertz etc. as it is covered by our travel insurance, but the Thrifty people said that our travel insurance didn't cover the types of insurance THEY wanted). We were able to get a couple of the insurance categories waived as the travel insurance did cover them, but ended up having to pay for two we weren't expecting, totalling over $300! The guy at the counter 'graciously' upgraded us to a Luxury vehicle – some HUGE tank of a Chrysler that probably guzzles fuel like it was water! And the price of gas here is unbelievable – $2.85 a gallon around LAX – and Thrifty charge you $6.69 a gallon to refill the car if you don't bring it back full. Most car rental companies charge a bit more than the going rate, but not $4 a gallon more! We've got another booking with Thrifty for the Michigan part of the trip. I'm seriously considering cancelling it and going with another company. Not happy, and being tired and grumpy meant that I wasn't feeling very kindly toward the man at the Thrifty counter.

Drama #2.

US cell phones and me are not meant to be together. Period. Let's backtrack a few years…

Back in about 2001 or 02, I decided to purchase a pre-paid US cell phone for my annual trips. Upgrading my Austalian phone to tri-band wasn't a viable option, and the call charges from Telstra were horrendous (gee, nothing's changes). So I ambled down to a Verizon store, bought a cheap phone, and paid to have it activated, then paid a bit more for talk time. About $90 all up. On returning to the US the next year, I reactivated the phone for a $30 charge and paid for some more talk time. I then lent the phone to a friend travelling to the US who reported that Verizon wouldn't reactivate it – something about radio frequencies of this type of phone and terrorists… So the Verizon phone became a small brick, suitable only for anchoring tiny objects to the sea floor.

The following year, I purchased an AT&T GoPhone. Well, AT&T is a BIG company, so I figured I'd be pretty safe with them. No reactivation fee for subsequent years too, so I paid $40 for the GoPhone and some more for some talk time minutes (probably about $30 which included 400 free weekend minutes).

In 2005 I return to the US to find that AT&T have been taken over by Cingular. After finding a Cingular store, I get the AT&T phone reactivated and pay for some more minutes. Life is rosy.

Then today, I take the AT&T GoPhone into the Cingular store (like I did last year), but now they can't reactivate the phone as they no longer deal with the AT&T SIM cards or AT&T network or AT&T phones (take you pick – I got ALL those responses… some even from the same person!). My alternative, says the nice Cingular salesperson, is to purchase a Cingular GoPhone + talk time minutes. Well, their GoPhones starts at $130 and talk time minutes are charged at either 25c a minute (or 10c a minute if you take the option where the first call of the day costs $1 flat + 10c minute thereafter). My head hurts, my brain's foggy, and I'm NOT HAPPY!

So I thank the nice gentleman at the Cingular store and walk out with a two year old obsolete phone that is only suitable for anchoring seaweed to the bottom of the ocean – and no working phone!!!

I'm really peeved that the rules can be changed so easily. What you believe one day (as per the website, as per what you were told, etc.) turns out to be a crock and a scam to lure you into paying many more dollars than you expected – or that you should.