DAY 23 - GOLDEN GATE

The weather here today in San Fran is... rather foggy!

We did not bother with the free hotel breakfast as it was so bad yesterday, instead setting off for the BART station again for our second day in downtown San Francisco.  We need to get a bus as well today which drops us off on the edge of the Golden Gate Park. From here, we grab a cheap breakfast of coffee and a pastry from a garage and set off to exploring the park. The park is very beautiful, though with lots of rotating sprinklers that threaten to shoot across the path and soak you at any minute! It turns out that to see inside most of the things in the park you have to pay individually, but we do get to see some nice park areas with fountains and plants, along with a 'temple of music', a kind of roman style stage for performances. We picked the Japanese Tea Garden as our one thing to visit, and it was a good choice! Filled with beautiful Japanese plants and decorations, we saw many rivers and prettily shaped trees...

... Koi carp...

... a very high pagoda...

... and fun stepping stones! It was a very interesting place to explore with lots of twists and turns and new pathways to discover. The golden gate park is very long and hence we only got to see about half of it as we needed to head to the bridge!

A little confusingly, the golden gate park is nowhere near the golden gate bridge. We knew it would be a long walk from one to the other, so we stopped at the 'bagel house' along the way for bagels with sun-dried tomato cream cheese and cucumber and pastries. We reached the edge of the park leading to the golden gate bridge already pretty tired from all the walking, and then realised the park was a little more of a forest than we were expecting and we didn't know how to get through!

Stumbling upon a map, we took what we hoped would be a path taking us to the bridge, although it was 2.7 miles long and labelled as not made yet! Despite our doubts and a little bit of walking along a road with no sidewalk, we did end up at the bridge, and with some great viewpoints along the way!

The fog had mostly lifted over the city by this point, and it had gotten nice and warm but a little fog remained over the bridge giving a cool spooky aura! Apparently fog is a regular thing at the bridge in summer due to the differing water temperatures of the pacific and the bay.

We headed to the start of the bridge, determined to walk the 4 mile journey across and back! Walking across, we got great views of San Fran behind us and the hills ahead on the other side.

Making it to the other side, we looked back celebratorily on the bridge and city behind us!

Although by this point we had pretty achy feet and considered trying to hitchhike back across, we decided to toughen up and do the return walk. It didn't seem so bad in the end luckily and we returned to the city feeling victorious! From here, we grabbed the bus and BART back to the hotel area where we topped the car up with petrol to return in the morning, tidied and packed, grabbed some Thai food for dinner and are, as we speak, getting ready for a short few hours sleep before we wake up at 3.30am to go catch our first flight! 

DAY 22 - JANE & JESS ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ

We begin the morning with a pretty lousy breakfast at the Days Inn.  Then we drive to the local BART Station to get the train to downtown San Francisco.  We get off at 16th & Mission and our first sight is of lots of homeless people.  We make a hasty retreat from this area to The Castro.  This is the gay area of town where Harvey Milk used to live.  We see the Castro Theatre and get some breakfast from a nearby cafe.  We then got a street car to Union Square and walked to China Town and to the City Lights Book Shop where Jessica bought a copy of Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouak.

We carried on our walk up some very steep San Francisco hills to The Coit Tower (which has great murals inside) and then back down some very steep steps to the Piers.  There are a load of sea lions at pier 39 that apparently arrived after the earth quake of 1989.  Initially the authorities wanted to get rid of them because boats used to dock at this pier but in the end they just let the sea lions stay and the boats had to leave.

 

We then moved on to Fishermans Wharf for lunch at Cioppinos.  Owned by an Italian Family this restaurant is one of the best on Fishermans Wharf.  Jessica had a pasta dish and I had the local crab and shrimp salad with delicious sour dough bread.

We carry on our walking tour of the eastern side of San Francisco to the park area surrounding Fort Mason.  There is a good view of the Golden Gate Bridge from here.  We spend some time resting in the park after our long walk.

By 5pm it is time for our walk back to Pier 33 for our Alcatraz Cruise.  We board the boat at 6.30pm for our night time tour.  We manage to get the top deck of the boat but it is pretty crowded so cannot get the best seats.  It is also getting very cold and windy!



As a special night-tour-treat, the boat circles the island before docking for some good views and photo opportunities of both the island and the cities around it on shore. Arriving back on the solid ground of the rock, we are split into groups for a guided tour up to the cell house. Along the way, we learn about the islands past as a military fort, plus numerous repetitive health and safety rules!

Entering the cell block via the main doors which prisoners would have used, we were provided with the best audio guides I have ever had. As we followed a path around the block, we listened to old guards and prisoners from the Alcatraz jail days telling tales of life in the prison, and the numerous escape attempts from it! It was really cool being here as night fell since the prison took on a dark and spooky atmosphere, especially as it was not that crowded.



We saw the classic 3 storey high cells, the dining room, the warden's room, the office and solitary confinement amongst others. We even got to go inside a solitary cell which was very creepy! There were also great views of the city at night from an outside area we visited. As a special treat for night time tour-ers, we got to visit the hospital wing which is normally closed for visitors. Like something out of a horror movie, we walked down corridors of cracked paint into the old operating room with foreboding metal operating table in the middle lit by a single lantern. Scary!  One of the rangers tells us the story of an inmate who escaped in 1962.  He managed to cut through some window bars in the store room where he works and escapes over the roof of the prison.  When he gets to the sea, he has 30 odd pairs of rubber gloves which he inflates and puts inside a shirt to use as an inflatable device.  He makes it to The Golden Gate Bridge despite nearly being swept away by the cold currents of the water.  Unfortunately he crawls ashore right by a military base and immediately gets arrested and sent  right back to Alcatraz (suffering from severe hypothermia - he has to spend some time in the prison hospital).



After walking back down to the dock in the dark, getting to see the burned down officers rec room and old schoolhouse, we catch the last boat of the night back to shore. Only us and a hardy other 5 or 6 people braved the top deck this time! It was freezing and very windy, but we resolutely enjoyed the view!

Back in San Fran, we caught the BART (their metro system) back, got a Taco Bell drive through on the way back from the station and ate it in our hotel room like true white trash! It was pretty late, so we went to bed to be well rested for our final day...

DAY 21 - The Final Leg

It's the final drive! We awake in the beautiful Cayucos to our last journey of the trip: up to San Francisco.

After coffee/juice and a blueberry muffin from the 'Top Dog Cafe', plus some cookies for the road from a fab looking bakery, we head off on the 6 hour journey to San Fran. Along the way, we saw a distant Hearst Castle and then stopped at a vista supposedly good for seeing elephant seals. As soon as we pulled up the Car(l), we spied a seal in the ocean in front of us. Excited, we ran out to take pictures when a man said there would be a better view farther along. So after watching out first seal, we moved farther down the walkway where we discovered a few more seals playing in the ocean, very close to the shore. It was great to see them in the wild!

We then decided to follow the path a little further around, but only then did we truly discover the better view we had been told of, there was a whole beach of sunbathing seals!

The young males not yet old enough to head for Alaska, there had to be 100 seals just chilling in the sun, occasionally heading in for a swim or play fighting. We stood and watched them for ages, it was so exciting!

After we had had our fill of seal watching, we carried on up the pacific coast highway, past Big Sur for some unfortunately extortionately priced petrol but cool ocean-side views.

We stopped at a grocery store in Santa Cruz for lunch, having pumpkin soup out in the sunshine, and then more coastal driving. We passed Monterrey and Carmel, which is the town where Clint Eastwood lives and was previously Mayor! Unfortunately we did not see Mr Eastwood to tell him that we named our sat nav after him...

We stopped at one more beautiful beach along the way, and even though mum was being silly and refused to come onto the sand because it was windy, I had a great time paddling and watching the windsurfers!

We arrived in San Fran, or to be more specific San Bruno where we are staying close to the airport, for around 4pm. Checking in to our final hotel, we spent some time clearing out the car for it's return and planning our 2 days here in the city. After this, we headed down to the local supermarket to get treats to bring home, and headed to an amazing Japanese restaurant in San Bruno named Aji Ichi where we ate fabulous gyoza and beef teriyaki. 12 miles from San Francisco our milometer reaches the 5000 mile mark. More news from San Fran tomorrow!

DAY 20 - SUNFLOWER SURPRISE

We leave our motel fairly early and pick up an "on the go" breakfast from the local 7/11 store.  We then drive down to Venice Beach.  It is a misty start and too cold to swim but we paddle a bit and watch the surfers who are braver than us but wearing wet suits.  We then commence our drive up the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway).  Unfortunately, Clint (our SatNav man) keeps sending us on the 101 instead of the 1 so we end up back in Hollywood.  After an hour of driving in the wrong direction in the usual manic traffic of LA we manage to get on the right route.  We are hoping to find a nice beach for lunch but after Jane misses a left hand turn off for the beach Jessica has picked out (because Jane thought it was a right hand turn and therefore cannot get across the four lanes of traffic in time) we end up sitting in a dusty windswept layby eating our left overs from yesterdays dinner.

After lunch we press on with our journey and by 3.30pm we arrive in Cayucos.  This is a classic California beach town and it is a real peach of a place.We are staying in the fabulous Seaside Motel http://www.seasidemotel.com .  The rooms are all themed - we are in the sunflower surprise room and we got a free upgrade so Jessica has her own little room. It is a family run motel and they have a wonderful garden which our rooms back on to.

After settling into our room, we decide to go to the Laundromat up the road because we havn't done any washing since The Battle of Little Bighorn.  We drive up to the laundromat even though it is only a little way up the road (like true Americans).  However, we find the machine supplying detergent is empty so we have to go to a nearby supermarket and purchase a whole large container.  We get our washing machine going and then go to give the left over detergent to a local man who is doing his washing (as we won't be needing it any more and we can't fit it in our suitcase.  The man's name is Greg and he is so thankful for the gift of detergent that he offers to take us to his local coffee shop up the road for afternoon tea/coffee.  Greg tells us that he has lived in Cayucos since 1991 and previously lived north of San Francisco.  We chat about our road trip for a while before venturing back to the Laudromat to dry our clothes.  

We then take a walk to the beach but the water is too cold for us to swim so we just paddle about and look at all the wildlife.  There are pelicans, some wading birds with long beaks and then we see a seal basking in the sea.  Another local man is walking his dog and he tells us that there were some dolphins in the sea just off the pier.  We get a few fleeting glimpses of them but they are too far out for a good view.

For dinner we go to Schooners Wharf which is just a short walk from our Motel for some sea food http://www.schoonerswharf.com 

On the way back to our room we go to yet another restaurant to pick up some Coconut Pie for dessert later (does it seem like we are always eating?)

DAY 19 - LA Women

Day 19: we awoke and quickly packed our things ready to head to our final stage of the trip. Leaving Vegas for good, we head out on the long road to California.

Along the way, we stopped in the town of Primm for some breakfast at 'Whiskey Pete's Stateline Store'. I was extremely excited as Primm is a location in the game Fallout New Vegas which I have played a lot, and it really had a rollercoaster! Driving on, we decided to take a more interesting route to LA than the boring interstate, so took a detour through the Mohave desert. This involved lots of empty, bumpy roads sided by cacti and water-starved bushes. At most times we could see no other cars on the road - it felt very adventurous! The drive was a little boring, it is a desert after all, but got more exciting when we saw tumbleweed and an old train!

After leaving the desert, we followed the interstate on to LA, and boy was there bad traffic! For about the last 2 and a half hours of the journey I (notice mum made me do all the city driving again, huh!) was driving down super busy 4 or 5 lane roads, a bit different from the UK! We arrived to the Venice Beach area without incident however and settled in to the Encore Motel for the night, which although I had worried might not be great was perfectly nice.

A little short on time, we headed right out in the car to Hollywood, driving through Beverly Hills on the way (with much singing of Weezer of course) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4iTyHItFwg).

Finally finding our car park, we explored Hollywood Boulevard, seeing all the tourist sites! The Hollywood walk of fame...

(Julie Andrews is my hand twin!)

... along with the Hollywood sign and Grauman's Chinese Theatre. We even managed to catch a snippet of whatever musical guest was on Jimmy Kimmel Live by spying on the outside stage from across the street (apparently Laura Mvula?). Mum is a little annoyed that Bastille are playing the night after we have left!

After seeing all our favourite stars' stars and matching our hands to the celebrities', we headed back to Venice for dinner. We headed to a great place down the street from us called 'Eddie's Italian', heralded as a big lover of garlic and boy were they! We were served free bread with massively delicious garlic oil and my food had about 20 whole garlic cloves in it! The place looked a little dive-y when we arrived, but true to the online review we didn't judge a book by it's cover and it turned out to be a real hidden gem. The portions were large enough we kept half for the next day's lunch!

Full and tired, we head back to the motel ready to travel up the Pacific Coast Highway the following morning...

DAY 18 - HOOVER DAM IT'S HOT

After a lengthy lie in until 11 am we had a lazy morning catching up with emails, blog etc and booked accommodation for our night between LA and San Fran.  Mid afternoon we decided to take a trip out to the Hoover Dam which is only about a 40 minute drive from Vegas.  We park up in the visitor car park and walk across the dam.  Construction of the dam began in 1930 and it was completed in under 5 years. It is named after Herbert Hoover (America's 31st President). Upon completion it was the highest concrete dam in the western hemisphere standing 725 feet above the Colorado River. The purpose of the dam is to control floods, store water for irrigation, municipal and industrial use and to provide hydroelectric power.  After leaving the Dam we take a quick look at Lake Mead. The temperature today is well over 100 degrees.

In the evening we dined at a Vietnamese restaurant in the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino. We then take to the casino floor again for some gambling.  We decide to try a new slot machine featuring Napoleon and Josephine.  It is extremely boring and we can't quite figure out what we are supposed to be doing but at 1 cent a go it is cheap and we do get free drinks again.  Just as the boredom is taking over the machine starts flashing and playing very loud music and says we have been awarded many free spins.  We are laughing hysterically as the machine has taken over and all we have to do is sit there while the free spins roll and we begin to win dollars.  Yet again we leave the casino with more money than we started with and 2 free drinks each as well.  We thought we might get the jack pot of over $1000 but alas it was not to be.  Jessica then wanted to play proper poker at one of the tables so we go up to one of the croupiers and he says he will teach us how to play.  A couple of American girls also come over to join us as they don't know how to play either.  Jess bets 5 dollars but loses this immediately on the first card draw so she decides to call it a day.

DAY 17 - 20 Gallons of Blood

Our first full day in Vegas!

We decided to have a relaxing day today since we had been driving such far distances for the past week or so. We spent our morning by the pool at the Rio, swimming in the pool and having to sit in the shade as it was so so hot!

The hotel has 3 free pools, all in different shapes. We particularly enjoyed the one with a waterfall!

After it got too hot outside, we returned to the indoors of the hotel for the afternoon. After sharing a burger king for lunch (there's not much cheap food available here in the hotel!), we returned to our room to update the blog and sort out finances and accommodation, after our stint in Arizona with no WiFi. We knew we'd be out late in the evening, so a quick afternoon rest/nap for me was in order!

Well rested and dressed for the evening, we headed out around 7pm to catch the shuttle to the strip. This time catching the shuttle to Harrah's, we got a bit lost inside there and the Quad: neither of which seemed as nice as our hotel! We checked out the Paris for a quick spot of gambling, but were disappointed by the apparent lack of free drinks this time! We headed back over to the Excalibur for dinner, this time snapping a few photos on the way such as the New York New York below. 

For the first time in 13 years, we got Popeyes chicken and biscuits for dinner, delicious as ever, then headed to the floor in the Excalibur for a bit more video poker. And this time, the house didn't win! We spent 3 dollars to make 5, and got 2 drinks for free, aw yeah! Happy with our success, we claimed our money and headed back towards the Planet Hollywood hotel for our evening show.

We had booked 2 VIP tickets to see the Evil Dead Musical, involving sitting in the notorious 'splatter zone' which basically involves having fake blood being thrown over you for 2 and a half hours! We were given our souvenir t-shirts to 'protect us' (like that worked) and taken to our seats, where we were somehow given the center of the front row! I had a bad feeling about this...

The show began and was hilarious, it had a really low budget feel with cheesy costumes and regular breaking of the fourth wall to acknowledge the tongue in cheek script. Filled with terrible puns, dance routines and hilariously written songs, we were pretty much constantly laughing or screaming. And why the screaming? Because we were having that 20 gallons of blood thrown all over us.

Out of everyone in the splatter zone, we proudly took the awards for most covered with blood. Mum, because in the first act she was chosen as the one to have one characters intestines spout all over her for about 3 minutes, covering her head to toe! I laughed considerably at this, but then in the interval it became my turn...

One of the actors came to the stage to chat to the crowd, and upon finding out I was from England chose me to stand up and have my photo taken. I had even more of a bad feeling about this and stood nervously as the count down for the picture ticked down. Facing the audience and unable to see the stage behind me, someone snuck up and poured an entire cup of blood over my head! Now totally covered in the cherry-coke-smelling stuff, I did at least get a free poster and mug!

The second act continued in  much the same way, only with more blood. By this time, we were pretty much immune to it! I won't ruin any story-line, but I will say that I can thoroughly recommend anyone seeing this show if they  get the chance! And to definitely get splatter zone tickets, but not to wear your best clothes! Their website is http://www.evildeadlasvegas.com/ for anyone interested.

The show finished at 2am, and after an odd walk through the strip covered in fake blood, we returned to the hotel on foot and luckily were allowed back in! The blood proved a little difficult to wash off and as we speak all our clothes lay drying around the room, trying not to get any red anywhere....

DAY 16 - VEGAS, BABY!

For day 16, we woke up to a beautifully hot day in Jacob Lake, Arizona. After fresh peaches for breakfast, we began our journey to Zion National Park. Arriving in a town called Springdale (kinda like Stockdale!) on the outskirts of the park and after a kerfuffle with the main car park being full, we were able to catch a shuttle bus into the park. With over 3 million visitors per year, Zion is one of the USA's  most popular state parks and so cars are not allowed within the canyon during peak season: instead we ride the shuttle back in and out with a recording giving interesting information and stops to explore some areas by foot.

In the panorama we see a view of the Court of the Patriarchs, 3 mountains named after, from left to right, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (the white peak just visible behind the redder one in the foreground).

Something I (Jessie) was excited to see were the narrows, an area where the cliff faces come really close together so the path through the canyon narrows to only a river which you can walk upstream through. But apparently I had never read up on this and the route into and through them involves an 8 hour hike which requires relative planning, uh oh! So instead we take the roughly half hour hike to the entrance of the narrows and have a peek down there, me making a promise to come back in the future! We saw plenty of squirrels along with dragonflies and lizards, though unfortunately still no California Condor!

After a few hours in the park we decided we had had our fill as it was getting to be one of our hottest days yet. We stopped for a mega-salad at a deli back in Springdale, only eating half and saving the rest in the cooler! Continuing on, we joined the I15 for the 3 hour drive to Vegas. Part very straight highway, part super windy mountain roads, we witnessed again the slightly crazy American  driving style of slow on straight roads, 20mph over the limit on bendy hills. Over taken by everything, including massive trucks, in the hills, I was then able to do a bit of catching up on the straights, though mum refused to stick her tongue out at the cars we caught up!

As we hit Nevada, the landscape changed to undeniable desert with casinos every 2 minutes! The road into Vegas was a little scarily busy, but nothing compared to the grand exiting of Salt Lake City (see: 2 days ago) so I obviously handled it like a pro and before long we arrived at our lodging for the next 3 nights: The Rio Suites Hotel and Casino.

Parking in what turned out to be the worst choice of car park, though we thought there was only one, we wheeled our suitcases all the way through the massive Rio hotel looking for the registration desk. We went through parking lot, shops and casino before we were finally in the right place. This place really is massive!

Upon check in, we headed to our room to find this place is not only the tower you see above, but also a whole extra tower where we have our room. The room is much bigger than we expected, and you can see it below:

2 queen beds, a sofa and an armchair, a dining table, a large dressing area with wardrobe and a sizable bathroom, our room has floor to ceiling windows with a grand view of the strip which we are just off. So far, we can thoroughly recommend this as a place to stay in Vegas. With a free shuttle to 2 hotels on the strip, it's slightly off strip location is no problem as we are roughly the same distance from the strip's center as you would be staying at a strip hotel at either end you also get a great view of the whole street from the room. 

So, our evening. After the second half of the salad for dinner, we explore our hotel's own casino for awhile, doing our first bit of gambling with 1$ in a one-armed-bandit! We don't win however :(

We headed out on the shuttle to the strip: heading first to Planet Hollywood for collection of our show tickets for tomorrow night (more on that next time!), where we take a look around their casino and shops, buying some delicious brownies for dessert! From here we take a walking trip down the south end of the strip: exploring the amazing New York New York, Excalibur, Luxor and Bellagio hotels. We walk/ catch free trams between these and wow they are amazing! In the Bellagio (where we really wanted to stay but alas, very expensive!), we decide to do a bit more gambling and sit down to play a little video poker. Margaritas in hand, which like all drinks in the casinos are free so long as you are gambling and tip the waitress $1 or so, we actually manage to make ourselves $5! Amazed at our luck, we decide to try a few other games but apparently we are only poker wizzes as this causes us to lose our money again. But oh well, free margaritas and fun!

After a lot of walking around the strip, we have tired feet and after a brief excursion to see Caesars Palace and a little watch of some street  hip hop acrobatics, we catch the shuttle home and head off for bed, me very excited for a my first trip lie in the next morning!

DAY 15 - THE GREATEST EARTH ON SHOW

We leave Richfield early as it is quite a long drive to The Grand Canyon and we want to spend some time at Bryce Canyon on the way.

Bryce Canyon is a drive through park and you can stop at all the picturesque spots along the way.  We see a Peregrine Falcon on top of one of the rocks.  The Aquarius Plateau is phenominal.
It is also fairly cold up here and we have to put on hoodies but being a hardy Brit Jane is still in her shorts.
The Native Indians call the tall mounds of stone Hoodoos (people turned to stone by a Coyote god).  We get loads of great photos.

After lunch on the road we drive on to the north rim of the Grand Canyon.  We park up and view the smaller Roaring Springs Canyon first then walk 100 yards to the Grand Cannyon itself. It is totally awesome.  I thought it would just be a large barrier where you could look over into to canyon but we are surprised to find that there are lots of trails and quite dangerous climbs you can make to get a better look into the canyon.

Being late afternoon there are no crowds and we are able to climb around to our hearts desire.  I did feel a bit sick when Jessica got up onto the rock above as I realised there was just a sheer drop over the back of it into the canyon.  

We were able to spend quite some time at the canyon as we had gained another hour today and were now on Pacific Time as Arizona does not observe daylight time.  

Before leaving we attended a talk about the Californian Condor.  This bird became almost extinct in the 1980's but numbers are now improving.  They are quite an ugly bird a bit like a turkey vulture but larger.  They have a nine foot wingspan.  However, they only lay one egg every two years and do not have much idea of nest building.  The survival rate for chicks is only around 30% so I don't see numbers increasing much any time soon.

Eventually it is time for us to leave the canyon to find our accommodation for the night at The Jacob Lake Inn.  We have rented a tiny log cabin in the woods and it is extremely nice despite its small size. We have dinner in the nearby Jacob Lake Inn Motel and then go to a very informative talk about the Navajo Indians.