The temperature was a lot different when we arrived in San Francisco, the air was cooler and we felt like we could breath again, however, we cant help but miss Las Vegas already! We decided to spend our first day in SF checking out the famous Pier 39, at $8 per hour to park they certainly knew how to make their money out of us tourists! Regardless of the parking, the Pier was great fun, they had heaps of funky souvenir and candy shops and is also home to a seal colony and best of all Bubba Gump Shrimp Co!!! (A delicious shrimp restaurant you may remember from the film Forest Gump) we went for the coconut shrimp and mussel & clam pot which was very yummy. Theres also a great views of Alcatraz and the surrounding marinas.

The following day we headed to Fresno where we were staying while visiting Yosemite National Park, our breakfast consisted of a McDonalds breakfast voucher and which we didn't have to go far as it was next door! It was a long long drive to Yosemite the next morning and as it was a bank holiday weekend the queue to get in was long! It was an interesting journey though and we got to see some real 'county & western' like towns along the way. After a lot of driving and waiting around we finally parked up and headed off to explore. Our first stop was lunch (of course). Salmon burgers and sweet potato chips later our tums were full so off we trekked off to see the Yosemite Falls. The waterfall was huge and there were plenty of people enjoying cooling off in the rock pools at the bottom. From the falls we got great views of the Half Dome and other beautiful scenic views, including California's longest tunnel which we drove through to get to the park.

The next morning and another Maccy Ds breakky at Fresno, we started heading back to San Francisco. To break up our journey I managed to convince Ash to stop off at, not one, but two Wal-Marts! The first Wal-Mart was small and didn't really fulfil my desire to explore the interesting superstore. The second however was much bigger and we got to see some classic American foods and huge size portions on offer, including a gallon bottle of syrup, 8 pinter of chocolate milk and the weirdest of all a jar of pigs feet! We had great fun checking out all of the wacky confectionary and stocking up on souvenirs.

Back in San Francisco our luck turned for the worse. It started off with Ash at breakfast, cutting through his toast his knife snapped clean in half and I couldn't stop laughing for ages! Then we tried to book ourselves on to the Alcatraz tour only to learn that it was fully booked for the following 3 days! So we finally decided to head out and hire bikes and ride to Golden Gate Bridge. All was well until I discovered that I had forgotten my memory card for my camera - bummer, but not the worst that could happen, we always had our phones to take pictures with. It was a lovely ride along the coast to the bridge and we stopped half way to have lunch and watch all the interesting people riding past on tandem bikes, roller boots, go carts and all sorts of three wheelers. We managed to make it over to the other side of the bridge before we turned around to head back. This is where things started to go really bad! Ash decides to try and do a skid around a corner and failed! The brakes are the opposite way round in the USA so he thinks he's pulling the back break but in fact he's pulling the front almost sending him over the handle bars! Five minutes later I look back and i've lost him, I look back again to see if I can see him and CRASH! Straight into a stationary car, wing mirror is bent all the way back, smashed into pieces and the alarm is going off! I quickly hurried to the pavement hoping no-one had seen me (no chance of that on a bank holiday weekend!) 2 minutes later Ash turns up with a popped tyre!!! It was then that we decided today was clearly not our day and that we should go to bed and hope that tomorrow is alot better!

After a lovely $8 (and BOGOF) dinner at Fresh Choice (similar to Harvester) we spent the evening in watching TV where we were safe! Ha ha...

The following day we decided to do some window shopping in Downtown. We started at Union Square and made our way through the rows of streets lined with the most amazing shops including Macy's, Bloomingdales and Louis Vitton. We also stumbled across a very loud, angry looking man who approached people shouting in their face, spitting in the progress, and preaching about God!

Our evening was spent chilling out and preparing for our last 2 weeks travelling down the coast. First stop Santa Cruz...