Crack-ridden inhabitants of the Tenderloin in San Francisco stare through our taxi windows, sun-bleached and apathetic. We spent too long in Japan - clean and clinical Japan, where the homeless are apparently recycled where they lie. Here, people keep themselves to themselves.
In a dingy motel, we photograph our rotten feet, wash our rotten pants, and fall idly into the pool, poking each other with heterosexual frustration. Nothing else is seen of the city - nothing worth writing about anyway. But the drive to Los Angeles shows what California is about: the space is immense, the sierras stretching to the sea and back.
San Diego is beautiful. An early show in the suburbs under a blue sky feels like the most perfect thing ever, even if our playing isn't. A humble burrito as reward comes with two pints of a cinnamon-flavoured cactus-milk smoothie that leaves my stomach drowned in confusion. After Japan - where raw clam, squid guts and beef cartilage emptied my stomach - I can't help but look forward to this sort of thing.
You can get good solid burgers, too, at In-N-Out, a fast-food chain recommended by everyone. No choice and no fuss - and so good that I accidentally order three burgers, manage two, and leave one on a picnic table outside. I can taste the fries, soft and buttery, for the whole of the long drive back north.
And, yes, it's a cliche, but California is huge. The drive to Oregon stretches on and on, over hills and mountains, until 'are we nearly there yet?' is the only sensible thing to say. Everything becomes wet and green, and I want to have children here, just as I wanted to have them in Vermont, Chicago, New York....
We don't play a messy show until our last in Seattle when everything breaks: the drums collapse in on themselves, Yannis's amp smashes the DJ booth, two guitars are ruined, and our generous and profoundly Zen techie breaks his finger. An unfitting finale.