Day 6: San Francisco Part 1

San Francisco Part 1

A later start today, knowing we had a later finish, and we jumped into the car and headed towards Lombard Street. Mel actually wanted to go to Ike's place for a sandwich but I forgot all about that as I battled with the street map as she battled with the traffic. We were almost on top of it before she realised my mistake.

Having hummed and harred about it, she had decided to drive down it like many visitors. I sure bet the residents of the street get fed up with us lot driving by their houses, but at least it's done slowly unlike the time I drove down it on the Xbox. We actually had the street to ourselves as you can see, but top and bottom there were crowds of people, and I struggled to get some clean pictures of it without getting cited for Jay walking.

Stopping at Vista Point we took some pictures of San Francisco itself over the bay, with Alcatraz in between, and a few portrait shots of us with the Bridge behind you.

 

Well, you have to don't you.

We carried onto Sausalitto and delved deeper into it this time and found a delightful restaurant on the water edge called The Trident, where the cheeky beggars charge you $5 to park outside to eat!

Luckily the food made up for that fact, and the service was delightful. Mel ordered a Asian Noodle salad and some sweet potatoe fries, and then my order had the chef coming back to the waiter to check if he got the order correct...

I ordered the chicken and bacon sandwich, with no chicken and extra bacon. A posh bacon sandwich if you will. I had truffle and Parmesan fries with it, which you can get in the UK at some Jamie's Italian locations and they are wonderful if a little sickly if you nosh too many back!

All this while enjoying views of the bay.

Once we had reclaimed our car from Dick Turpin, we headed to find Ikes' place to get a sandwich for when we got back from Alcatraz. Mel told me it was on 6th street, so I dutifully guided her there but we couldn't find it. So I turned on my 4G 50MB package i bought for a work issue which I've been squeezing gently, to find it was actually on 16th street. I guess that makes us 1-All after my mistake this morning.

Guiding Mel dutifully to 16th I noted the numbers on the signs, and we set off down the road looking for it. After a few blocks I realised the numbers were running in the wrong direction, so we turned round and I guess that makes it 2-1 to Mel.

Whilst waiting outside, having panicked Mel by thinking it was closed, I decided we were so close on time for our boat to The Rock that I'd quickly 4G the directions back to the hotel, take screenshots and turn it off again.

This, my friends, is tip of the day: Do that in your hotel on WiFi for your journeys, take screenshots, and be thankful of it in places as mad as San Francisco. The two hour journey to Ikes was a 13 minute trip back to the hotel using Google. This, for the rest of the trip, is how we are rolling!

Getting back to the hotel I couldn't resist a bite of the Paul Rueben sandwich, consisting of pastrami, cheese, pickled onions and other things I couldn't recognise. This turned into several bites and before I knew it half was gone.

Mel had the thanksgiving special, with turkey, lettuce, tomato and spicy cranberry sauce. She decided not to take a bite and came back later to a soggy sandwich, but the fillings were yummy and the room was full of snacks anyway.

We walked a short way up the street to a taxi rank outside a hotel with a chap with a whistle that did little but blow it and collect dollars. He had a fat wedge he s trying to hide in his palm but was either failing miserably or wanted you to see that was the way he expected things to run. Not with us, the cheeky blighter, we opened our own door. He was also wrapped up for winter from what we could tell, with a big heavy black wool coat decorated like an army official on his back.

At pier 33 we had a short wait for our boat to Alcatraz and then we were herded into cues for a compulsory photograph that is probably as much for homeland security as it is for selling you on the way back, and on the boat we got.

Continues in Part 2

 

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Day 5: San Francisco

The night was a difficult one due to the EXTREMELY loud air condition, which we eventually had to turn off and rely on the ceiling fans and less bedding. It almost certainly got its revenge on me by giving me a nasty cough.

A Mountain Dew promotion truck met us as soon as we left the hotel today, giving away sample cups of new Dew in Citrus and Fruit Punch flavours made with fruit juice. Nom nom. We later found some cans but as yet not bottles to bring back to the UK.

Tram time, so a quick trip down to Market Street and a debate on which side of the street we should be. The tram driver was extremely friendly and made conversation with everyone and went over and above simple announcements of stops and said what you could see from them, and tips on alternatives.

Our first stop was the farmers market at the old ferry building at the bottom of market street, and we soon found ourselves breakfast in hand on the pier at the back. This really is a treat of a market if you like your gourmet food and drinks. Artisan breads, cheeses, meats and wines are available as well as fusions of multiple sellers, such as the sweet baked roll i bought from a bakery made with cream cheese from another seller, and fruit chutney from another. Mel got pulled pork and roasties and both our choices were delicious.

On our way out the back we saw "The Slanted Door" which is eastern restaurant recommended by Lol Scragg to us, which we aim to visit another time.

Onto the tram again and down to Pier 39 which was considerably bigger than I expected it to be.

You can see Alcatraz from the end of the pier, but it s a miserable day at this point a picture was pointless.

Whilst we had a drink and some nibbles the sun came out so we got the bill, and I asked Mel if she'd started trying a new signature yet; she sweetly giggled that she hadn't even thought about it.

The 4 strawberries and 3 slices of cheese were $11 which shows what San Francisco can be like. When Mel asked for some balsamic vinegar to dip them in we half expected that to be on the bill too!

Pier 39 has a famous area where a Sea Lion colony reside, and I thought it would be funny to take this shot of the "Famous Seagull" and post it on theDIBB.

Some shopping next, including a left hander emporium that Ned Flanders would be proud of. Mel grabbed various bits and pieces of leftism and we both grabbed a SF hoody to say we've been here.

Back at the hotel we jumped into the car and headed to the park, as during yesterday's driving madness neither of us had really seen anything of it!

We stopped at the Japanese tea garden, as the trees looked wonderful from the outside. The $7 entrance fee was well worth the money as the garden is a beautiful maze of paths, stone steps and plants. There are whole collections of dwarf trees, a giant pagoda and a rather amusing bridge.

 

I was even brave enough to climb it today.

We got lost coming out of Golden Gate Park and ended up in Twin Peaks which wasn't a bad thing. David Lynch would have been proud of my shot of a garage sign. We shopped for supplies and for some reason the store detective followed us around, even when we doubled back so I could show him to Mel. We also got a scratch card and doubled our money. Happy Days!

I grabbed a burger and demolished it in the car before we'd even moved - which would surprise anyone who has seen me eat normally.

Mel got Thai food again, and we settled down in the room to watch a TV show a lot like Location Location Location where some American chaps were complaining about houses worth the same as ours but 5x the size, on a lake with their own dock and slip way.

We need to move here.

 

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Day 4: Monterey to San Francisco

Day 4: Monterey to San Francisco

Having to throw the original plan out of the window due to the lack of spare tyre and a space-saver on the front of a big 4x4 full of luggage, we missed Santa Cruz and the famous boardwalk from The Lost Boys.

Stupid Dollar. Again.

So we crawled up the 101 to San Jose airport as directed, stopping for a Denny's on the way.

The swap over, in all fairness, was quick and painless and both cars ended up side by side to save us lugging things around. Given we had a cooler bought cheaply from Walmart full of drinks and ice for our road trip this was a godsend.

Then back onto the 101 through Palo Alto which was nerd heaven for me, passing big names like Oracle, NASA, Evernote and some famous universities.

Once into San Francisco the fun starts. Think London is bad? The one way system is beyond madness and well into insanity.

Bring Valium. Even as a passenger.

With the Golden Gate Bridge a must-do we continued by our hotel and over it. Even at 1pm the layers of fog obscure the top of it today, and the temperature noticeably drops over the space of 100meters or so. Pop out the other side and all clears up; truly a surreal experience!

Next stop Sausalito, which Mel had heard was a nice place to stop and indeed it was, with a cracking view of the bay. We had some wine, coffee, meatballs and ice-cream and watched the adults play bowls. Kids not allowed to play by decree of signage. Heh.

Back over the bridge with the delight of the toll being free at that time and onto the hotel.

...Meaning back into the horror of the one-way system and utter confusion.

Being so close many times was frustrating, especially when getting round the system includes getting on the interstate in rush hour!

Finally getting close enough, we drove round one block four times trying to park outside the hotel. Those steep streets you see in the movie? They are worse in real life and if you were driving a manual you'd be changing your clutch every 8 miles.

We got a space in the end just ahead of another car, who proceeded to leave it sticking out into the road.

Which was amusing when the tram, on rails of course, tried to get past. Then she argued with the tram driver when he got out and asked her to move!

Picture to come.

The room isn't bad for the money in SF. It's on the low end of what I'd call a suite. We had the choice of a "Quiet Room" or a "City View" room at the Villa Florence. We chose the quiet room which I knew would be facing a wall but not overlooking a rowdy jazz club. But make sure you keep the window closed as food be a-cooking on this side!

The bed is ok, the toilet seat can be seen from the bed or separate sofa area via the door mirror, the fridge is barely that. But I've read about worse and at least the wifi works here.

We head out for supplies as paying £3.50 for a can of coke in the hotel is more insane than the roads, to find the Walgreens a few doors down was holding a private party.

A private party in a pharmacy? Odd.

Further into Union Square we find a Thai Noodle bar and another Walgreens and load up on water and fried rice. I also track down a small liquor store and get a short bottle of Smirnoff which was plastic and served in a brown bag. Feels like Alabama.

All this time we could smell very strong cannabis! It seemed everyone was smoking it.

TV food then bed. Once the noisy arse air conditioning was tamed. Seems to be a common theme for our holiday so far.

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DAY 3: Pismo Beach to Monterey

DAY 3: Pismo Beach to Monterey

http://goo.gl/maps/zp1aI - 151 Miles (3 Hours 26 Minutes)

Hotel: Best Western Plus Beach Resort - £170 (Ocean View)

It hammered down with rain overnight but the morning is beautiful and my new fiancé is in the jacuzzi at 7am under blue skies. It's a little chilly but it's early and the day looks like it will be splendid.

The hotel charged us $5 to keep a room key as souvenir, but didn't charge us for the minibar when I complained about the wifi being more broke than not. I bet that key card would have cost them less. *Shakes Head*

We headed to The House of Bread which was one of my choices, and I was a little disappointed although Mel was happy. Don't get me wrong, the bread is really fantastic and they offer you all sorts of things to try while you wait, but my beef sandwich was huge chunks of chewy beef rather than the shaved beef stack that I was expecting, or indeed was shown on the board behind the counter.

I ate half anyway, and we headed onto the 101 North to Monterey when I suddenly realised we actually needed to be on the 1 at this point. These two roads we spend so much time as one road it's confusing, and my toothache was playing up. That's my excuse, and Mel rescued it with a difficult u-turn on a 6 lane interstate and we headed back to get the right road.

This started off fine for me, with miles of interesting views and we soon came to the Elephant Seal colony, which I hadn't told Mel about :-)

Getting out the car, I looked over towards the beach and stated that I wasn't sure if my eyes were deceiving me, and there looked to be hundreds of Seals. Surely not, but when we got to the viewing platform it confirmed I was indeed wrong.

There was about 2000, and the guide confirmed this. This picture doesn't do it justice, but the video will when I post it at a later date.

The seals losing their coats are the females.

We then got to the tricky bit where you start clinging onto the sides of mountains with drops hundreds of feet onto rocks and the Pacific on, lucky for me, the other side of the road.

The views are breathtaking, but if you have the fear of heights I do think twice about this. Some areas don't even have guard rails, and I could easily see why the road was so empty.

...and this goes on for 70 miles.

Then the worst thing happened. The car throws up a low tyre pressure warning, so we pull over jump out and inspect the tyres. All seems ok, so we continue on with about 40 miles more of rock clinging.

17 mile drive was our next stop, and having paid our $10 bucks to get in, we drive road some of the nicest houses we've ever seen. Then it breaks out onto the beach with the Spyglass Hill golf club which some of my friends will remember us playing on Tiger Woods a while back. I can confirm the wind in real life is as bad as it is in the game! But What A View as you play.

After a quick stop at the Pebble Beach golf club, a browse of the "If you have to ask, you can't afford it" shops that have less price tickets than Harrods and of course a picture of the legendary clock, we headed on to Monterey.

The room at the Best Western Beach resort does indeed have a sea view, and it's a very nice one where you can sit on loungers or even watch it from your bed. This later on turned out to be a welcome treat.

Dumping our stuff we headed to Cannery row, hopefully avoiding any sardines or other seafood, to get something to eat.

Given that the choices are burgers or seafood largely, we opted for Bubba Gumps where only 80% of the menu is seafood, but at least you get a sea view. Burgers consumed (heh) we returned to the car.

To find a flat tyre.

Now given, if you remember from earlier, we were half way down the Pacific Coast Highway in no where land with no phone signal when the alarm went off, luck was certainly on our side really.

So we swapped out the fat 4x4 tyre for the skinny space-saver and crawled back to the hotel to phone Dollar so we could get it fixed before we set off for San Francisco.

Mel got on the phone, to have Dollar suggest we return it to LAX.

Anybody who knows the west coast enough to understand what a round trip from Monterey to LAX, back to Monterey and onto San Francisco means in term of time and has probably spit their coffee out by now, especially on a space-saver at 50. So it will come as no surprise that Mel said "THAT isn't an option."

Eventually settling on San Jose a mere 75 miles but in the right direction, it meant we only missed out Santa Cruz in the end.

So one clean up later, and our car full of snacks and drinks organised for a quick swap out we settled down to watch the sun set and then sleep.

Beautiful.

 

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DAY 2: Santa Barbara to Pismo Beach

DAY 2: Santa Barbara to Pismo Beach

http://goo.gl/maps/RgU4H - 78 Miles (1 Hour 20 Mins)

Hotel: Seaventure - £266 (Ocean view suite with hot tub.)

Up and out by 9 this mornings having had that odd nights sleep you get when you throw your body out of sync by 8 hours. The bed, pillows and air condition were all fine if a bit loud, but for the money and location it is a good stop off if you are doing Highway One.

 

We saw more of the aftermath of the bush fires as we drove north towards Pismo beach today, with huge sections of the central reservation burnt to a crisp. At other times on the journey the were vines for miles and as far as the eye could see. Then fields of vegetables growing seemingly to the horizon, it's getting hotter as we head north so I guess that's why they do this - and as its in the middle of nowhere I guess the land was cheap!

We missed a turning and ended up in Santa Maria where Mel is now buying bits from Dominos pizza. Tsk. All this way to do that. I ended up buying the mini crispy burritos from 7-11 which are cheap and cheerful, and we are sat eating them looking out over the ocean at Pismo Beach, which seems to be quite popular.

So my next mission for the day was to ask an important question.

We drove up the beach road and came across a big art fair, and stopped for a look. This was shell beach, which is odd as I couldn't see a beach only a small cliff and a view of the whole of Pismo down the coast to eventually the Pismo Beach.

Sitting on a bench in a small circle area on the point, I waited for Mel to fInish off her slushie whilst I fetched a necklace and the camera from the car.

Then I asked her to marry me and she accepted. What a wonderful thing.

 

 

Some calls to parents later, who in fact knew I was doing it here as I of course had to ask her father for permission, then it was back to the jacuzzi on our private balcony, some champagne and room service to round off a very special day in our lives.

 

Asleep by 8pm. Stupid jet lag.

 

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DAY 1: LAX (LA International Airport) -> Santa Barbara

DAY 1: LAX (LA International Airport) -> Santa Barbara

http://goo.gl/maps/aauYu - 103 Miles (1 Hour 57 Minutes)

Hotel: Sandman Inn - £79

We managed to score the bulkhead seats on the plane, and I even managed to sleep some of so all in all a painless flight. LAX was a nightmare at passport control however and it was well over an hour to get through.

Dollar was as bad. There computer system had gone down so they were relying on a manual process and it took over an hour again, and I nearly fell asleep. We loaded the cases in Mels chosen colour car - a rather nice deep shade of red. However, when we turned the ignition on the darn thing it needed an oil change, so we loaded everything into another.

Except the case keys. Doh.

The drive to Santa Barbara took a little longer than Google thought, but we did take in lots of the scenery like Malibu and the charred remains of many bushes and trees from the recent bush fires.

A quick stop at Whole Foods and Jack in the Box for snacks and we were practically asleep.

Once I busted the lock off Mels case of course.

Next stop Pismo Beach.

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Here we go.

Sitting Pn the plane. Nice to have 4G :-)

Mel scored free extra legroom seats and they are happy to flow the champagne free of charge too. The joy of Premium with Virgin Atlantic.

Last night was a bit of a blur due to kicking off my holiday with Richard mid afternoon. It's taken a few vodkas in the Servisair lounge to get back on track.

It's amazing how much luggage some are bringing on. Ryanair would go nuts. I'm sure some people are bringing into the cabin as much as we are checking in the hold