01/01/12

We woke early to get going early and left the motel (Santa Barbara) about 7.15am, filled the car with gas and headed off. The first part of the journey took us through some beautiful countryside to Cambria, which is the start do the "Big Sur", a stretch of coastline that has some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, and we weren't disappointed. Our first stop was an elephant seal viewing area, we both thought we wouldn't be lucky enough to see any but as soon as we looked over the fence, there were hundreds of them. Apparently they come to this beach yearly to give birth to their pups.

We then had to get past hundreds of bike riders (this strip is a very popular bike trail), once past them things got much more relaxing. We stopped and had coffee about 10am and I took over the driving, Marty had done just about all the driving so far. Marty was therefore responsible for the picture taking, and he took a photo of just about every corner we turned, because it was just so beautiful.

We stopped at the whale watching, where a Park Ranger was stationed providing information on both the whales which you could see in the very distant ocean, but most impressive was the Californian Condors, there are apparently only a dozen of them left & we saw 4 of them, admittedly from a distance. The have a wing span of 9 feet.

We drove a bit further and stopped on the side of the road and ate the leftover from the couple of days in Santa Barbara - ham sandwich & OJ. It was just lovely sitting on the side of the road watching the world go by, knowing that we were going to be doing this for a very long time. The journey through the rest of the Big Sur ended in Monterey and from there we readjusted the Tom Tom to take us to our accommodation in SF. Marty got a bit sleepy on the way and fell asleep (with my blessing), but I was concerned that I might get sleepy. Not a chance. Not long after Marty fell asleep, the freeway went from 2 lanes to 5 lanes in a big hurry, and Moneypenny (Tom Toms alter ego) started the business of staying left and then get in the right lane s***, so there was no chance of me sleeping, I was so "on the ball". Made it in to SF without a hitch but with lots of WOWS!

As Marty had mentioned on FB I had managed to score 4* accommodation in Union Square for $75 a night, BUT, that almost gets negated by the fact that parking at the hotel was $48 a night plus taxes. They were kind enough to advise us of alternatives, so we checked in, dumped our luggage and took off again to find a bed for our car. We got around the corner and found a parking garage, but no one in attendance, so we parked the car & Marty found a guy that was parking there to ask his advice. Bottom line - we left a note under the office door explaining why we left the car, where we were staying and the fact that we would be back in the morning to fix them up. We weren't exactly comfortable with leaving the car this way but also weren't prepared to pay the $48. That night we went to a local Thai restaurant and had a beautiful meal for cheap as chips.

02/01/2012

I was woken early this morning by a strange continuous thumping noise, stopped occasionally but resumed fairly quickly. Even though I woke early every morning, this was really annoying, and when Marty woke, he said it had kept him awake on and off since about 5 as well. I figured it was the treadmill in the gym, but Marty said after having a look that it was miles away.

Somewhere in amongst everything that we did yesterday I managed to book an amazing tour package which included boat cruise to Alcatraz, 48 hours of hop on, hop off bus tours of 4 different bus trips and a walking tour of Chinatown for $82. So first thing on Monday morning we had to get to the ticket office to pick up the tickets. We found the cable car stop just around the corner from our hotel and bought a 3 day pass, then jumped on our very first cable car ride, and it was so much fun, we saw Lombard street, a most unique street, then ended at the ticket office where we started our trip on the big buses. First we went around downtown SF, then on the bus over the Golden Gate Bridge, then back to Fisherman's Wharf. Lunchtime. Guess what, it was peak crab season, so we got fresh Dungeness crab, which is the cross between a sandy and a muddy but has much more flesh than what we get at home so we were both satisfied after sharing one crab.

We then found the museum and had a look at the warship & submarine, then ventured into the museum of mechaniques, a slot machine museum that had all the old old old slot machines and pinball machines. We had a go at a couple of them, and it was great to be able to play the old pinball again.

We decided we had had enough, so jumped on the street car (different to the cable car) and made our way back to our home of the moment. Only to be greeted by that thumping noise again. We decided to talk to reception about it, because we checked the gym again and sure enough there was a guy thumping away on the treadmill. We explained our concern to one of the reception guys and without any hesitation we were given another room, 17 story's away from the gym on the 22nd floor. Loving the 4*s. so we quickly packed up and moved our stuff to our new room with an awesome view of SF.

Speaking of SF, you may like to know some interesting facts about it
* its only a small city of 7 square miles with a population of around 800,000
* a few million people commute into SF daily to either work or tour (that's us)
* they have more restaurants per head than any other city in the world
* they have more dogs registered than children enrolled in school, and they are allowed to go everywhere, we even met one in the elevator of the hotel.

Marty wanted to have dinner at an Italian restaurant so we went looking for one around Union Square, but they seemed a bit expensive, so we jumped on the cable car yet again to see where we ended up, this time it was an Irish pub (at least it started with the same letter) and had an average meal. Back on the cable car, but this time we were hanging on the outside all the way back, it was so much fun.

03/01/2012

We had a lazy start this morning, which was a good thing as the weather was all fog, and my head cold was making me feel lousy so got some washing done at the local laundromat, after having a cheap breaky in a cafe.

Our only plan today included Alcatraz, fortunately the fog had cleared by the time our tour came around, so we headed down to Pier 33, this time on a biodiesel bus. We joined a pre booked queue, that took some time to get us on the boat, with a couple hundred other people.

We listened to the 15 minute movie, then made our way up to the cell block for the 45 audio tour, I love these audio tours, as you get to listen at your own pace and if you missed something you an replay it.

On our return to the mainland, we watched the fog coming back in over the Golden Gate Bridge, grateful that it had abated for our trip to Alcatraz. We spent a short time occupying ourselves on fisherman's wharf then jumped on the bus for a night time tour of SF. This lasted a couple of hours and we saw a different side of SF. Dinner time - we walked a few blocks to Little Italy and chose a cosy little Italian restaurant and had a lovely dinner, then had to find our way home, no worries, after checking the map we walked 2 blocks and jumped on the cable car, back to our home.

04/01/2012

We started this morning with a healthy breakfast at Fisherman's Wharf then hired our bikes for the 'Big Ride'. I knew that Marty wasn't keen to do this, but I really really wanted to ride pushbikes over the Golden Gate bridge. I mean let's face it, anyone can ride a bus (which we had done) or walk over it, but to be able to say we rode a push bike over it, at the ages of 50 & 51! We were a bit wobbly to start with, not having ridden bikes for several years, but soon got our bike legs and scooted along nicely. We made it to the first stop, the Palace of Fine Arts, which didn't have any fine arts, and were going to go into the "Exploratorium" but it was chockers full of children so opted not to go in.

We had a fantastic ride to Fort Point, which is under the bridge, then legged it up to the SF side of the bridge. It was pretty exhilarating to be riding over it, and we had perfect weather to enjoy the sights. The ride down the other side to Sausalito was also exciting as it is a very steep long downhill road with no bike track, so we had to be particularly careful. Sausalito has some of the most expensive real estate in the USA, with amazing views of SF. Once in Sausalito, we made our way to the ferry terminal and jumped on the next ferry back to Fisherman's Wharf. Once back we rode along the main drag and returned the bikes, with huge smiles on our faces. Even Marty had really enjoyed it.

We stopped and had a clam chowder, after finding a couple of t shirts for Marty, then made our way back to the cable car, met yet another bunch of Aussies, there have been heaps of them here, and chatted to them while we waited for a car. This was a particularly uncomfortable ride as they just kept packing people in to an already crowded car, so half way back we jumped off and 5 minutes later jumped on an almost empty car. We were feeling incredibly chuffed at what we had done, but also quite sore. We Skyped some people and had dinner at the hotels Thai restaurant, which was ok.

05/01/2012

I woke early, how unusual, so went downstairs to the business centre to do some banking and chatting online, but also booked our accommodation for the next leg of our trip. Strange times they have here in USA, they talk about 'early bird discounts' before 9.30am, and shops don't open till 10am, and I even heard people saying they wanted breakfast first, and it was 10 o'clock in the morning. Needless to say I was the only person in the business center for quite a while. We had used up our 3 day public transport pass, but still had a couple of places we wanted to go, so caught a biodiesel bus to the Haight/Ashbury area, cost us all of $5. This area is a left over from the hippie days and was recommended by our friend Jo, and I have to say a big thank you as we found a shop that sold oils for Marty's e cigarette.

We also bought a couple of beautiful apples, haven't tasted apples like that for years. We then legged it to the Painted Ladies, a few streets of the original Victorian Houses that survived the 1906 earthquake and fire, are heritage listed and must keep the original color, and they are beautiful.
Another bus home, this time an electric bus, and we decided that seeing a movie would be good, so we went and saw Mission Impossible 4, The Ghost Protocol at an IMAX theatre, would highly recommend it to everyone, the best movie I have seen in a long time.

We finished the day off with dinner at the Thai Restaurant we had dinner at the first night.