San Francisco

After an easy drive up the 101 from Mountain View, we left the off ramp in San Francisco and pretty much landed up at our motel. Nice and easy just the way we like it. Our motel was just south of Market Street and a short walk from china town, so we stopped for a meal before bed. 

China Town

The following day we did a walking tour from our Lonely Planet guide book, it took us around most of the city.  We walked through the back streets of Chinatown, through Little Italy and up a very steep road to the Coit Tower - from where you can get a pretty cool view of the whole city.

Stupidly Steep road towards Coit Tower

We then walked down the steep Filbert steps discovering houses hidden away in the hillside and only accessible by foot from the steep path and steps.  From here we headed up to Pier 39 and had some local beer at Bubba Gump's.

Forest 'Gump' Ratcliffe

A little merry, we walked down past all the odd numbered piers to the Ferry Building  (the even numbered ones are south of the Ferry Building).  By this point we were quite tired and hungry so we headed back to our motel.

Ferry Building

The next day we embarked on the 49 mile scenic drive, which is a route which takes in most of the main sights of the city.  Driving through downtown was a bit manic but once we got a little further north, the roads were a little quieter.  Some of the highlights were City Hall, Lombard Street (bendy road) the Palace of Fine Arts, the view of the Golden Gate Bridge from Fort Point, Golden Gate Park and the awesome view of the whole of San Francisco from the top of the Twin Peaks.  We even stopped off at a nudest beach but it mustn't have been warm enough for that.....  An awesome drive and a very enjoyable day.

Palace of Fine Arts

Golden Gate Bridge

San Francisco from Twin Peaks

On Saturday we went to the railway museum and did a bit of shopping - a relatively relaxing day which was well received.  Sunday was the day for our trip to Alcatraz.  We got up early and took a 1930s Street Car to the pier and sailed to Alcatraz island.  The audio tour of the prison was great and we got to listen to a former inmate talk live about his memories of being locked up there.  We wandered round the island, sat on the steps in the recreation yard and learned about several escape attempts from a ranger.  

Alcatraz from the boat

As the sun started to set, we took a cable car ride from the north back down to market street.  Kate managed not to fall off as she hung onto the side of the car.

Cable car being turned around

Our next day (Valentine's day) was spent exploring Sausalito and Napa Valley (wine region).  We had lunch in a waterfront café in Sausalito and drove up to some of the oldest wineries in Napa Valley.  Unfortunately we experienced our 2nd day of rain since leaving the UK and we missed the sunshine.

Sausalito bay

We stayed the night close to the airport ready to fly to Calgary, Alberta the next day.  We've been here for a week now and blog updates will follow.

The Californian Coast & San Jose

Sorry for the late posting everyone, we've had such an awesome time travelling up the Californian coast that we didn't get chance to update. Well we left Dave and Juliah in LA and headed for Santa Barbara up highway 101. We spent a couple of hours in Santa Barbara looking around the shops, and later headed up to a campsite near El Capitan State Beach right on the coast.  We stayed a couple of days chilling out and went up the hill behind the site to fly our kites.

From there we headed up the coast to Morro Bay and camped at the state park.  The site was lovely and quiet.  The complete opposite of LA.

Morro Bay

From Morro Bay we continued up the coast on route 1.  The further north we went, the more awesome the scenery became.  We went to a lovely small town called Cambria and stopped to soak up the view at San Simeon.  

Coast near San Simeon / Cambria

From there we carried on up the 1 to Hearst Castle and then we stopped to see the Elephant Seals.  

Hearst Castle

Elephant Seals on the beach

And just as we thought the coastline couldn't get any better, we continued on up the windy steep route 1 towards Big Sur.  Words and pictures could not do this drive justice.  Wow!

Highway 1 south of Big Sur

We stayed in Big Sur State Park under the redwood trees.  It was very windy and some large branches blew down and dented a pick-up.  Luckily, we managed not to get hit.  In the morning we went for a drink at Ventana to soak up the sunshine and gawp at the view.

The following day we drove up to Carmel and went on the 17 mile drive - a lovely section of the coast littered with golf courses, beaches and posh houses.

On the 17 mile drive

We camped in between Monterey and Santa Cruz that night where mating frogs made dropping off to sleep quite difficult...  We spent the next day exploring Santa Cruz and headed up towards the Big Basin State Park.  We intended to camp, but the temperature had dropped so we stayed in a nice motel in Ben Lomond!  The next morning we headed up into the park and went for a walk through the redwoods.  They were enormous!  At one point, a fallen tree blocked our path and we had to clamber around it's 4ft wide trunk.

Tallest Redwood tree - Big Basic California

We continued to head north from here towards San Jose so David could geek it up in Silicon Valley.  The Computer History museum was pretty cool.  It had everything from early counting machines to computer games.  David could have stayed all day and night!

An original Apple 1

Google server circa 1999

From Silicon Valley it was only a short drive to San Francisco.  Pictures and more blogging to come.

Los Angeles

We left it so long to update the blog that we have LA to do too.  Oops.  So, if you're not bored already from reading San Diego & Mexico, read on.....

We've been staying with (extended) family in Hollywood for a few days and have really enjoyed LA.  There was so much more to do than we had time for.

Buster - our hosts' dog

The first day we drove (only way to get around in LA really) down to Santa Monica and went for a wander down the pier & got some lunch.  David did a bit of skateboarding and we did a fair bit of people-watching.  Santa Monica is home to the original 'Muscle Beach' although it's moved further East to Venice Beach now.  Santa Monica is also the end of route 66, although not much of the original road remains.  We've driven a few stretches of it over the last few weeks.

The end of Route 66

David staking in Santa Monica

Santa Monica Beach & Pier

 Sunday we went to the Hollywood Farmer's Market with Juliah & Dave (our hosts) and had some fab food!  We then headed up to the Hollywood hills to get a good view of the Hollywood sign (originally an advert for Hollywoodland Estate Agents!).  We then drove through Griffith Park up to the Observatory.  The view was impaired slightly by rain clouds (our first day of rain since we set off!) but we could still see quite a lot.  Family BBQ in the evening where we got to meet more extended family.  :-)

The Hollywood sign on a rare rainy day

The Griffith Park Observatory

 Monday the weather was back to being beautiful so we went up to a lovely little town/suberb called Pasadena and had lunch in a 50's diner (David loves 50's Americana).  We then went to see the Gamble house - Doc Brown's house in Back to the Future.  In the afternoon we went down to Venice beach and hired bikes to ride along the beach front bike path.  In the evening we went to see Thinderbolt & Lightfoot at a small indie cinema.

The Gamble house (Doc Brown's house in Back to the Future)

We spent our last day at Universal Studios!  This is where travelling in winter is great - we didn't have to queue for anything more than 5mins.  We did the back lot tour, saw all the shows and went on all the rides.  We even got to take part in the special effects show where David had to dress up as an astronaut.  

War of the Worlds set (Who left the gas on??!)

David the astronaut (Space monkey)

Bronze statues at Universal Studios

 In the evening we went for a walk down Hollywood Boulevard to see the star walk, the hand prints at the Chinese Theatre, the Kodak Theatre and El Capitan (Disney's theatre). Unfortunately William Shatner wasn't out and about so we settled for Patrick Stewart's star.

Patrick Stewart's star on Hollywood Boulevard

 It was a mad few days and we enjoyed every minute of it.  Thanks a lot to Juliah & Dave - great hosts! + Buster too.

San Diego & Tijuana

After a good rest in Vegas we hit the road and headed down the freeway to San Diego on the I15 via San Bernardino. It was hot day without a cloud in sky so we put our shades on and enjoyed cruising to rock radio. Before long just near a place called Barstow, we saw signs for a 50s diner called 'Peggy Sues 50's diner', a perfect place to break up the drive. This place had everything you'd expect to see in the classic American movies. The food was tasty and portions very generous, but you'd soon get fat eating there too often! We stuffed our faces and rejoined the freeway.

Peggy Sue's 50s diner


Eventually after some fratching and a bit of stressing on the busy freeways  around the outskirts of LA, we ended up at the end of the I15 at the US Naval Base of San Diego (of all places). We'd overshot the city so we had to drive north through the dodgy looking neighbourhood, until eventually getting to the city centre. We found a motel and got some sleep. We'd planned to meet an old friend of Kate's the next day at a fantastic bar called The Yard House http://www.yardhouse.com. They had around one hundred and thirty beers on tap there, with the taps soldiered up next to eachother. The beer was good and so was the company. It felt funny hearing a broad yorkshire accent again tho after all our travelling in the states!

Whilst in San Diego we went to a classic car museum, enjoyed Mission Beach, and saw a fantastic sunset at La Jolla bay (pronounced 'la hoya').  See pictures below.  

Lockheed SR71 Blackbird

DeLorean DMC-12

David on Mission Beach

La Jolla Bay

We had five nights in San Diego but there was still lots of things to see and do. The waterfront near the marina, and views from the beach at sunset are vivid and beautiful. You will also see a photo of the original town settlement, which is essentially an open air museum. There were plenty of turn of the century adobe style homes to view, mostly turned into ye olde shoppes with staff in period clothing. The downtown area is the modern city area.

San Diego Old Town

On our last day we headed to Tijuana, Mexico.  We took the trolley to the border and followed signs to the Tijuana shuttle.  We walked over a bridge and, without passport control or anyone batting an eyelid, we waked into Mexico!  

Mexico - USA border


Tijuana is very run down but we had a great day.  We wandered around the main street and did a bit of shopping.  David enjoyed haggling on price and talking to old men about the history of Mexico.

Welcome to Tijuana!

Tijuana cathedral


Restaurant staff were out on the streets beckoning tourists to their establishment and we decided to eat in a busier restaurant with a balcony.  The food was good and the beer was very very cheap!   Whilst we were waiting for our meal, a band arrived to entertain us. Below is a video David took.   

From San Diego we headed north up the coast towards Los Angeles.