SLO FANNY WRAPPERS

DAY 7: Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo, via Santa Maria

After trying to book some accommodation for San Francisco on the slowest internet machine ever (I ended up phoning them), we left Santa Barbara and headed up Route 101 to San Luis Obispo - our base for the next two nights.

I can see why people rate the California coastal drive so much; the views are just so amazing. And add the sunshine, clear blue skies and some classic all-American power ballads (think Starship's 'We built this city', Journey's 'Don't stop believing' and Meat Loaf's 'Dead Ringer for Love') and it's hard to stop your foot hitting the floor with the accelerator.

We decided to use Santa Maria as a pit stop on our way up the freeway and a pit stop it was. A town with no personality, everything very dispersed and you can't get around without a car. This is America's answer to Telford or Milton Keynes. After a slice of pizza in the mall, we were off again with our power ballads up loud.

Now San Luis Obispo on the other hand is very nice. Not as quaint as Santa Barbara, but very nice all the same. San Luis Obispo is abbreviated locally to SLO, and you can imagine the play on words some businesses have with their names. So far we've seen 'SLO Insurance Services', 'SLO Transportation' and an elderly centre called 'SLO Senior Center' (see photo in the California album). I bet the older generation love that.

When we were walking around the town (we couldn't check in until 4.30pm) we heard a 'mom' summon her daughter out of a shop; 'Come on Hannah Banana'. Knowing this was too coincidental even for the US for two kids to be called this, I Googled it and Hannah Banana is from Family Guy - apologies for not knowing Family Guy fans.

After yet another latte (getting used to this coffee drinking culture now) and some more people/weirdo watching (we saw two Goth/grungy guys walking down the street, one had a small grey kitten in his hands - looked like he was about to eat it), we headed to our hostel for check-in.

We've again opted for the penthouse suite of the hostel world - a private double room, although this one doesn't have an en suite. And at nearly 50 bucks cheaper than the last which did, I don't mind. Hostel Obispo has a great vibe to it. It's an old guest house-style hostel full of character and a really buzzing community feel about the place. I can't believe there isn't a 'SLOtel' or a 'SLOstel' yet though.

After we checked-in and freshened up we headed back out in search of dinner and a few drinks. We came across this bar with an almighty queue of people waiting to get in. So we decided to find a restaurant first then maybe go back and see what all the fuss was about.

We ate at the Thai Palace which was superb, getting our taste buds warmed up for the last leg of our journey in December.

It's a Sunday, so it's American football game night. A few sports bars sounded really vibrant, but full of Americhavs, so we were a little put off. Instead we went to find the place that everyone was queuing for before we sat down to dinner, only to see them all leaving. I guess whatever they had queued for was over. So we retired early and decided to save our social energy (aka drinking capacity) for tomorrow night.

Shop name of the day:

'Fanny Wrappers'

I don't even know where to start with this one. I might pop in tomorrow and see what a fanny wrapper is and how they do it.