Indian Wells Masters & Flying Disc Ranch

When one thinks of California's best attractions, the state's dramatic coastline necessarily comes to mind. From the diverse attractions of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, to quaint and idyllic seaside towns; from golden beaches and the jagged cliffsides of Big Sur, to the misty redwoods in the North and surf culture in SoCal, the Pacific seaboard seems to have it all. The Californian desert, meanwhile, is a much less iconic region, and perhaps a strange stopping point for a traveler. It is an even stranger location for one of the biggest professional tennis tournaments in the world, the prime reason for my visit. But when I arrived in Palm Desert, where the imposing gates of Country Clubs mark almost every corner, and the streets are lined with high-end restaurants and shops, things started to make a bit more sense. In this town of mostly wealthy retirees, there are no hostels or budget motels, and public transport is practically non-existent. But with a little imgaination, the Indian Wells Masters need not be an event solely for wealthy locals. I arranged to Couchsurf with Gary Johnson and his family in Palm Desert, and they kindly gave me a lift to the tournament and lent me a bike to cycle the six miles back. They were extremely generous and easy-going. Gary owns a a BBQ business and I sampled his signature dish, a pulled pork and jalapeno sandwich in pita bread.
At the tennis, I was eagerly anticipating being that over-zealous guy with a saltire flag in support of the world no. 4, Andy Murray. Unfortunately the three-time Grand Slam finalist had his worst tournament in about a year (probably the last time at Indian Wells), crashing out to the world no.92 in his first match. Alas, I still saw three of the greatest players of all time in the same day, so I have no complaints. Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer all progressed to the Quarter Finals, the latter two actually being worked quite hard for victory, which made for a livelier atmosphere in the stands. And from near the top tier of the world's second biggest tennis stadium, I had a surprisingly good view of the action. The best match, however, took place at the more intimate Court 2, where flamboyant Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga took on angry Argentinian David Nalbandian. For most of the first two sets, Tsonga was playing fantasy tennis and joking with the crowd, while Nalbandian threw his racket against the advertising boards to the ire of the punters. But at match point on his own serve, Tsonga capitulated, losing the second set and eventually the match. When I saw him again in the doubles, on a floodlit minor court, about to be knocked out for the second time in a day, he was considerably less jovial, and had adopted Nalbandian's court-violating ways. At such moments on the 11 month ATP tour, a tennis player must feel very far from home.

The following day I had some idea of how Tsonga must have felt, as I headed further into the desert and deeper into the unknown. I would be volunteering for the next fortnight on a farm in a small outpost named Thermal, which I found through the website wwoof.org, which advertises organic farm work in exchange for food and accomodation. Situated on a great empty plateau, with dry and barren mountains in the middle distance, I felt like I had arrived in the middle of nowhere. Slightly overwhelmed by the isolation and unfamiliarity, I briefly slipped into a mindset that has come to me occasionally since I arrived in the US. At such moments green and wet Scotland becomes the ultimate paradise world. Edinburgh and Glasgow are blissful havens, while thinking of being on Iona is gut-wrenchingly bittersweet. Stark's Park (home of Raith Rovers FC, for the few readers who will not follow the Scottish First Division) on a dreich November night seems like nirvana. So far on my travels, indulgence in wistfulness has fortunately been easily outweighed by times of excitement ande enthusiasm. Nonethetheless, nostalgia for the familiar is to be expected on occasion, and my affection for Scotland is genuine. As much as I'm enjoying immersion in America, I feel heightened fondness and appreciation for life at home - and that in itself is a benefit of traveling. And in a sense, the knowledge that I will be back there in a few months has helped me give myself over to the experience here.

Anyway, I soon got over my initial hesitation, and found that settling in the same place for a couple of weeks provided the perfect down-time from the wearying traveler life. My main motive for working on a farm, in addition to saving money, was to make my experience of the US as varied as possible, as dotting from city to city could only ever show one side of the nation. Life at the Flying Disc Ranch, just a few miles from the San Andreas fault, certainly offered all of that, and proved that for every American stereotype reinforced in reality, its cultural opposite can also be found.

The owner of the farm, Robert Lowther, a Californian native probably in his early sixties, built the ranch from scratch after purchasing the eighteen-acres in 1979. Robert seemed quietly proud of the farm's success in light of the fact that local farmers had warned him off the buying the patch of land for its odd-shape and poor location, yet before long he had transformed it into a blossoming and prosperous farm. There's something very American about that, I think. Beyond the east fence of the farm was a small Mexican trailer park, on land which Robert claimed was technically still his, but a legal settlement years ago had not gone in his favour. Thermal and the surrounding area are overwhelmingly Hispanic, and he seemed to have a mixture of time-honoured friendships and feuds with Dominguez and Rodriguez, Hernandez and Alvarez. Robert is a man of few words, and he rarely takes his sunglasses off. But he was fair with the work and seemed like a cool guy on the occasions he chose to open up. The other permanent resident of Flying Disc was a friendly but very intense woman in her thirties named Christina, who was brought up in San Francisco but had sought out the quiter country life. Although there was nobody there around my age, I was very grateful to at least have another 'wwoofer' with me, a Canadian woman in her late thirties, as being the only volunteer would have proved challenging both work-wise and socially.

Our day's work ranged from picking grapefruits, driving a tractor, packing dates, planting, pollinating palm trees, and a whole lot of mulch and compost shifting. After work was done, I got into a routine of making myself some freshly squeezed juice from the farm's own oranges; genuinely the sweetest and juiciest I've ever tasted. During the afternoon I would often laze 'taps-aff' by the dried up pool with an ice cold Cerveza. I washed in the liberating open-air solar shower and slept in a semi-outdoor thatched wooden room. After dark a huge freight train would hurtle past and blow its horn into the peaceful night. I also relished the opportunity to experiment with all sorts of veggie food from their well-stocked fridge and blooming garden (Robert and Christina are vegetarian and vegan respectively). It made a welcome change from the fast food diet of the road.

While I quickly took to the lifestyle at Flying Disc Ranch, I struggled to embrace many of the
predominant attitudes on the farm. Christina, influenced by her yoga and spirituality class
"Wildmoon Wisdom", advocated a peculiar brand of New Age mysticism and health obsessiveness with unyielding intensity. I am receptive to changing my diet on ethical grounds, and indeed many 'health foods' do carry that advantage, but it was clear that notions of personal well-being and longevity drove her lifestyle above all else. The view that aging is just a mindset was taken to lengths I've never before heard argued. I was often offered me some of her "delicious" green juice, which I occasionally accepted out of politeness and knocked back with squinted eyes. At one point she "enlightened" me that I should not drink water with my meal because it is terrible for digestion, even if it is a really "European" thing to do. I was unaware that a whole continent was suffering from this awful affliction. Irrespective of its scientific basis in truth, I've decided to live fast and take my chances on that one. I was also unaware that people are pre-destined to act in certain ways by the month in which they are born. Both the farm owners and the other wwoofer, were, to varying degrees, followers of astrology. One of the first things Christina asked me was my starsign, and in conversation people's actions were often framed in reference to it. "Such a gemini", indeed.

On the whole, however, I felt much more in tune with life on the farm than in the atmosphere of the giant beige shopping strips that dominate the nearby towns and highways. Just a few minutes from the striking natural beauty that surrounds the ranch are these vast artificial environments of consumer America, which look like they were built last week. There was a fascinating contrast between the 'green' lifestyle of the ranch, with its living-off-the-land ethos, and the United States of Convenience culture down the road; world of toilet seat covers, Starbucks drive-thrus, and fortress Walmarts. I once bought a pizza and a bottle of milk and the cashier double-bagged both items. When I reflected some of these thoughts to Robert, he chuckled and said in his lazy surfer-dude voice, "Yah...it's a strange reality out there!"

 As Woody Guthrie once sang, "California is a Garden of Eden / A paradise to live in or see". The Golden State has traditionally represented the Dream perfected in the American psyche: a utopia of Freedom, Sunshine and Money in a land of natural beauty and plentiful resources. Destiny Manifested at the edge of the frontier. I'm not sure if those ideas have any relevance for Americans today. Perhaps they have become dated in recent years, as rampant capitalism has faced increased scrutiny, and some economists have spoken of the waning of the American Age. What I can say for certain though, is that much of California is indeed very beautiful, and there remains many parts of it that I haven't seen. However, after four weeks there, I felt excited to cross state lines for the first time, and hopefully to places far away from shopping strips. The Grand Canyon seemed to fit the bill.