A long way home

We’re leaving USA today. We enjoyed every moment of our holidays. This county is vast and its great outdoors are beautiful. You go a hundred miles down the road and the weather and the landscape changes. There’s always something different to see here and everywhere you go people are friendly. We didn’t manage to go, do and see everything here so we’ll be coming back some time. Now, we’re looking forward to a cup of tea and our own bed.

Ace Ventura

It’s our last full day of driving before dropping Musty the car off tomorrow and boarding the plane to England. We set off early and went to go elephant seals twitching. There is quite a big colony near San Simeon. The seals weren’t doing much apart for sunbathing, swimming, flipping sand and scratching their bellies - typical beach bums. They share the beach with very cheeky and fearless squirrels.

As we’re trying to get as close to LA as possible before tomorrow we decided we’ll stay in Ventura, just past Santa Barbara. Ventura is a nice little town on the highway 101.  Little Miss Sunshine, Erin Brockovich, The Rock and a couple of other films have been filmed here. Again, we had a motel voucher :)

We arrived quite early so we went exploring. We found shop selling Hawaiian shirts and JJ bought one. He says it will be his barbeque shirt although I think he should wear it to the office. I bought a pareo as we are in surfboarding town after all.

There seems to be quite a few Indian restaurants so we went out to check if anything can beat curry served in our home sweet home Leicester. It was quite nice but Leicester definitely reigns.

K

The Silver Surfer

Today was the day we left San Francisco but before doing so we went for a drive down the Crookedest Street starting on the top of the Russian Hill and drove over the Golden Gate Bridge (twice).

Then we were off for a drive south on Big Sur. For most of the journey today we had hills to our left and the ocean to our right with the fog from above the water rolling up and down the hills. The scenery was very beautiful but also very eerie.

San Simeon seemed as good place as any to stop for a night besides we had discount vouchers for one of the motels there (The Silver Surf). We picked the brochure at the beginning of the holidays and it saved us some money for sure. Our room for today’s night came with an access to spa and a pool so we spent an evening relaxing in hot tub and then went for a pizza and karaoke with Elvis at a bar nearby. The King looked about sixty but could sing as good as ever (almost).

Escape from Alcatraz

The boat for Alcatraz leaves from Pier 33. I recon I could swim it easy but I had my phone & stuff on me & it would ruin it. It's another lovely hot & sunny day, apparently we've been very lucky for this time of year in SF.

Alcatraz is a really cool place, we came early so it wouldn't be full of tourists all over the place.

You can wander around at your own pace or take the audio tour. We helped ourselves first, lots of great derelict buildings to explore.

Then on the the audio tour of the cell blocks themselves.

It's a good tour narrated by the ex guards & cons.

Broadway

Clint Eastwood's paper-mache head.

Birds own the island now. The seagulls where nesting eggs anywhere & everywhere.

Some freaky spikey plants.

The gardens are really nice, not many people bother with them so you get a bit of the island to yourself for a bit.

Geesling? Goosling?

Egrets make the funniest bird call.

Back on the mainland we bumped into the famous SF Bush Man. If you haven't seen him check him out on Youtube, very funny. Then visited the Cheesecake Factory at the top of Macy's.

We rode the cable cars home, some plonker cuts us up & causes them to break down again. We waited for the tow car this time, it was worth it.