Leaving San Fran

We left our hotel in San Fran early on Tuesday and headed over to the car parking facility to pick up the blue beast and drive over to Fort Point to take some last shots of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a nice (but chilly) morning and we walked along the cliff near the Golden gate and then up and down some paths and through some old gun tunnels to arrive at the bridge. My fist walk along the Golden gate and boy was I woozy as I hate heights. I was somewhat comforted when I saw the size of the cross section of the cables they had on display at the fort.  They are 92.4cm in diameter each so I am guessing that will hold ok lol 😉  

We then headed back to the car and drove through and said goodbye to San Franscisco, which was sad as we really had a great time there. We headed out over the Bay Bridge and two level bridge and then out on the freeway towards Sacramento and then onto Reno.

We stopped on the way and had breakfast at the Ihop ( and Brooke so you know there is now dancing only lots of pancakes) lol  A small stop for some retail therapy… and then onward.

We arrived late into Reno and headed to our first casino stay as the Grand Sierra Resort. The room was on the 19^th floor and high as. We have great view of the city and arriving planes flying into the city.

We got settled to our room, love the marble bathroom and then went for a drive downtown and then came back for a late dinner…very nice and then sleep.

Car in Reno

 

Alcatraz

 We took a trip to Alcatraz today. We met up with a teacher and her husband that I work with who was here for a few days. It was great to see a familiar face. I was glad we were on the first boat over to the island as later on in the day it was so crowded. I was also glad we pre-booked as it was booked out solid when we got here. You got these headphones with a self guided tour on it. A clever and informational idea. The view over there was wonderful, but what a lonely place for all those prisoners. The cells were so cold and dark and the stories sad. It is now home to many seagulls who have kinda taken over the place. Today the weather is lovely with blue skies and much warmer temperatures.

We then said goodbye to our friends who were going to fisherman’s wharf before they fly off to Chicago tomorrow and headed down to the food court at Westfieldfor some lunch. It is amazing the choice of food you have, how do you ever choose?  But i will tell you a secret, the pastries here are  delish 😉 Spending  some time now looking out the window at a fire escape and listening to the sounds of the city.

Off to Reno  tomorrow ….

 Car in San Francisco…

Walking, shopping and Lunch @ ChinaTown

You know I haven’t been this chilly for so long it isn’t funny, talk about cold winds. Lucky we walked miles today to warm us. We headed down by cable car to Fisherman’s wharf then took the path around and over the hill towards the Golden Gate bridge. We walked around aquatic park and over the hill to Fort Mason. We stopped for a coffee and a warm up at Starbucks as we were pretty chilled by this stage. I fear we have became accustomed to warmth of  tropical north Queensland and are not coping too well with the cold here. We then continued on down Marina Boulevard and up to Chrissy Filed to take some shots of the bridge. The cold got enough for us and we headed on back to the wharf and went to the San Fran Visitors centre to learn about the history of the shipping industry. A bit more window shopping and then a trip back on the cable car to the motel to warm up lol

We then decided to head down to Chinatown for lunch and enjoyed a meal of satay beef and yummy sweet and sour prawns.

We then headed over to  St Mary’s Cathedral. To have a look at the spectacular stained glass windows.

http://www.inetours.com/Pages/images/Chinatown/Old-St-Marys_9991.jpg

Off then to Union Square and in and out of Macy’s and Westfield shopping centre for  bit more retail therapy to warm us up lol 🙂 Now we passed a really deliscious looking chocolate shop on the way back this afternoon so we are going to have a yummy treat to end off the day. Do you want some Ghirardelli treats??

Car in San Franscisco 🙂 xx

In San Franscico doing the Cable Car

What  a great day, after a really long needed sleep we went downstairs to get a cup of hot yummy coffee and sit in the “study” to drink it and take in the many pleasures of the room. There are old typewriters, Bakelite black phones and walls of bookshelves and beautiful sketches. It really has a great atmosphere.

We then headed over the road to a shop called Walgreens ( which we have now called Wolverines lol) to get our three day city pass, then walked over to catch a cable car. We jumped on squashed into the car like sardines and travelled up and down the hills all the while the driver was ringing the bell and playing tunes on it. It was so much fun. We got off at Lombard street 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombard_Street_%28San_Francisco%29

This is a street famous having a steep, one-block section that consists of tight hairpin turns. I got up on a ledge and took some shots of this street. Then we continued down the street towards Fisherman’s wharf and I got my first glimpse of the Golden gate bridge. So exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We spent some time down at the wharf looking at all the shops and I got a left handed ruler at the left handed shop, how handy is that for a teacher lol We then went and saw the seals at Pier 39. There were so many of them.

We were then heading back towards the other end of the wharf when we heard a lady offering a boat trip out and under the bridge. We decided to go and try our luck out on the water and it was so worth it, super cold, they gave out blankets, but wonderful to view the bridge from underneath, we also got to go around Alcatraz, but we are booked to go out there on Monday.  

 We decided to go back to the motel to warm up and then headed out for a walk around Chinatown and then on down to Union Square and some window shopping at Tiffany’s… walking up and down those hills is giving the legs a work out … Car (walking lots) in San Francisco. xx

Doing the Coast Road to San Fran

 

We left Santa Maria after a waffle breakfast and headed to the coast road. We went  into a place called Pismo Beach and drove down to Shelly Beach where we saw huge rocks rising out of the water covered in pelicans. They were not white like the ones at home, but brown. We saw two small seals sleeping out on the some rocks way out to sea. It was unreal.

We then headed on and headed off the highway to Cayucos Pier and bought some delicious strawberries and fresh raisins warming in the California sun. We had to fight the bee to get them as he was enjoying a feed to.

We arrived at Hearst Castle at about 11am only to find it booked up until 4pm that day, I was so disappointed. There were hundreds of people there and bus loads of tourists filling the place. So off we went again..

We pulled off the road a while later to view the giant elephant seals, they were huge. When we got out of the car all these squirrels ran up to us and we fed them a few cherries, they were so cute.  Then we headed down to the viewing area to see the seals. They were all laying around flicking sand up on them selves. A couple of the males were having a play and telling each other who was boss. It was an amazing sight.

On we went stopping at Big Sur to take some shots of the famous bridge there and by now the fog had cleared and we had great views all down the coast, it was beautiful., All along the roadside all these yellow flowers were blooming.

Then we headed off into San Fran via some really interesting and totally freaky over passes and by ways. For some reason though ( could be be because of 4th July long weekend) it was not so busy as I imagined it would have been. Still no sighting of the bridge. We headed into the city where pedestrians kinda ignore cars and just stand in front of you and to our car parking.  The promised car to the hotel was out on another run so we had to walk to our hotel. The hills are steep in San Fran, we went up three blocks with our luggage then right and then down two ,, lol could have gone straight across but we had no idea where we were.

When we got to the motel they had no record of our reservation so lucky I had the confirmation printed out. It was about 8pm by now and we were exhausted. They had a room thank god and we went up and dumped out luggage and slept….welcome to San Fran.

 Tired Car in San Fran xx

 

Leaving L.A.

 

We left L.A at about 7.30am (don’t fret  we had coffee and bagels before we left) and headed up the coast road making our way to Santa Marina. The fog was heavy for a large part of the trip, but we managed to stop and watch the surfers are Malibu and went into Ventura and walked along the Ventura Pier, Saw more squirrels too 😉  The scenery changed and we were suddenly at lovely rolling hills and farms, saw a huge strawberry plantation and many blueberry farms. It seemed at times like we were back home driving for some time through gum tree bushland. We stopped on the side of the road at this lovely field of yellow flowers and I took a few shots.  Such a stark contrast from L.A.  We then headed on and reached Santa Maria early afternoon. We are off to explore the area and get some food, now there is another story with  so many food  places to choose from 🙂

Car in Santa Maria

Santa Monica Peering

 

We decided to tackle the L.A. freeway on our own  and do a bit of mustang counting lol L.A drivers are CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!  We headed to do a bit of shopping and found a “Mall” somewhere on the South side of L.A. The thing I noticed here besides their being a LOT more water in the toilets lol and that the light switches are the wrong way round is that malls are totally different. They are generally one major store with a number of places around it outdoors where we have large buildings of store upon stores.. we walked our butts off today… .. we gave the credit card a work out then headed out and back on the freeway back to the hotel.

  We then left the hotel and walked from Marina Del Rey, to Venice beach then all the way to Santa Monica Pier. It was a gorgeous walk along the beach and I got to see Hotel California, the inspiration for the song which was pretty surreal as it is one of my favourite songs.  The pier was so huge with a roller coaster and ferris wheel and made out of all old wooden planks. There were so many people there and people making sketches of people, sculpting peoples faces and the famous Bubba Gumps seafood restaurant.

We sat on a bench and watched the Pacific Ocean crash against the pier and watched the seagulls zoom down and catch fish. A perfect end to a busy day 🙂

Car in L.A.  – addicted to bagels

Walking the Stars

 

What a huge few days we have had.  We went on a planned tour today. We were picked up by a speed demon of a driver and whisked ( read raced madly without thought or care ) through the city to the offices of VIP tours. We were transferred then to a large bus with a really interesting driver called Monday, Monday was a pretty cool driver who had all the moves and all the words down pat 🙂  We headed back passed our motel and around the marina ,,yet again lol no sighting of the squirell. We went down passed Santa Monica Pier and then up to Beverly hills to look at the houses of the stars. I later got named the Aussie Paparazzi, I guess I took a few photos along the way lol I was fascinated to see Charlie Chaplin’s house  and the Playboy mansion. We weren’t allowed in as they had enough bunnies. We rounded a corner to see the worlds press outside the house where Michael Jackson died.  There were so many people there and so many wreaths and messages, home made crosses and crying people. It was pretty amazing.  After a few more multi millon dollar mansions  we headed down to Rodeo drive.

 I got to take shots of the Beverly Hills Wiltshire where Pretty Woman was filmed. I saw a multi thousand dollar bag I thought was pretty sweet and I talked to the Versae bodyguard about my camera and his job, which was interesting,

We then headed to the Farmers Market for lunch and a tour around a shopping village/world/ neighborhood it was that big.  Very interesting.

 We then headed into Hollywood into the mass hysteria of Michael Jackson’s star which we avoided. I got to stand in Cary Grants foot prints which was pretty cool.  I saw a very manly Marylin Munroe, Darth Vader and Spider-man sitting on a garbage bin… surreal place. I also got to see the Hollywood sign, but hard to see clearly with the smog as it is quite heavy here. But good news  I did see my first blue sky and L.A cloudage today lol

After a late arrival back we headed down to get a coffee, totally addicted to the vanilla/hazelnut taste and then headed back down to “baywatch” beach to watch the sun go down….. which is so late here compared to home.

Off to bed…it is nearly midnight here…Car in L.A

xxx

 

 

 

 

Sketched in Venice

What an exciting day after bagels and cream cheese and vanilla coffee (all new treats)  we headed off for a walk down to Venice Beach. We actually headed the wrong way and ended up with a very long foot tour of the Marina Del Rey marina. We saw lots and lots of boats and I got to see my very first squirrel,,,,,OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so excited.  It was on my list of top things to see on this trip and I saw it on the first day….. isn’t that awesome. What a treat. 

I also saw gum trees, kangaroo paw and bottle brush ..all aussie flora.. right here in L.A.

After a 2 hour walk we headed back to the hotel and got the car and headed to Venice beach…take two lol 😉 Now this was an eye opener for sure. We were there about three minutes and we saw our first arrest. The lifestyle there is so far foreign to anything I have ever seen…amazing.

 I got a sketch of me done by this man called Winston for $5..He was from Long Beach California and told me that he had done an Arts degree at college, but was now here sketching for tourists.  It was strange having my sketch done and all these people looking at it, a whole heap of people took a shot of my sketch and it is now being taken back to all theses different countries around the world……the thing I noticed straight away was that he did my eyes two different colours. So what do you think if the sketch????

We had lunch at the Bondi cafe, an Aussie “themed” restaurant ( this was purely by accident) but don’t worry there was nothing Aussie about it lol 😉 But it was really great food.

I saw the famous Venice beach muscle area and got a smile from a body builder when I took his photo and saw where  The Doors met  on Venice Beach and the mural that they have dedicated to Jim Morrison’s memory. 

We have been mustang counting and currently the total is about 456 lol so far….

Well still a little jet lagged so time for a Nana nap 🙂 Car in L.A.