The trip to L.A - Malibu, Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood

We left the motel in Santa Barbara again in good time today and went to visit the famous mission in Santa Barbara, by the same name!  It's still an active church so we had to wait until after mass to visit the worship area itself.   The mission had beautiful gardens and some very old trees too.  We then visited the courthouse in Santa Barbara which is an incredibly grand building, given its purpose.

We then drove on further down Highway 1 and have a delicious fish lunch in a really busy and popular place called the Reel Inn near Malibu Beach.  We drove on along Sunset Boulevard, which was fun as it was so sunny and we had the top of the Mustang down.  For our final visit we drove into Hollywood and parked up to have a walk around the famous Hollywood Boulevard and to see some famous theatres where to Oscars are awarded each year.

We got to LAX at 7pm, returned the car (boo!) and go our 10pm flight back to Heathrow after a truly fantastic holiday.  I'd recommend California as a trip in your lifetime to anyone!

Cambria to Santa Barbara - the last full day

We left Cambria around 11am today after a pleasant night and a good breakfast.  We visited a tiny town called Harmony with a state population of 18.  It didn't take long!  We also stopped at a pretty beach called Spooner's Cove at Montaña de Oro state park.

Our next stop was a visit to the pretty town of San Luis Obispo where we had a rather disappointing lunch in a place called the Blue Sky Cafe but then visited the Mission in the town. It had a very odd double set of seating, giving two perpendicular aspects on the altar table.  There was also a lovely museum of modern art in San Luis Obispo, that we enjoyed visiting.

We drove on to Santa Barbara where we were booked into a nice motel called the Sandman.  It had a great pool and spa and a nice spacious room.  We had dinner at a local cheap Mexican restaurant then wandered along to a local pub called the Tiburon, which was actually quite a fun bar with a friendly barman and decent beers.

Driving down Highway 1 and Hearst Castle

We left Monterey this morning to start the drive down Highway 1, driving along the area known as the Big Sur.  There were some spectacular views and we stopped several times to take them in, including visiting Julia Pfeiffer-Burns park to see a beautiful natural waterfall (McWay Falls) that comes out of the cliff onto the beach.  We some amazing groups of seals on some beaches too. We visited Hearst Castle in the afternoon, a fascinating place built by William R Hearst in the early part of the 20th Century.  It has a bizarre mish-mash of European antiquities as part of its structure and I think is more stunning outside than inside!

We got to our Motel, the Cambria Shores Inn, soon after 6pm and wandered into Cambria itself for dinner a bit later.

Monterey Bay Aquarium and a trip around 17 mile drive

We went to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium today. It was about a mile walk down the hill from Mike and Jan's house. It's a really good aquarium but this week is Spring Break in the US so it was teaming with barging kids, making it hard to see much.  What we did see was pretty impressive though, particularly the jellyfish collections. We had lunch in a nice restaurant that was part of a fishmongers so had extremely fresh fish.

After lunch we walked back up the hill to the house and picked up the Mustang to go for a drive around the area.  We visited a really pretty area called 17 mile drive with some amazing houses and some amazing views of the bay.  We went back into Monterey later for a wander around the older parts of the town.

We had a nice Thai meal for dinner in the evening on Lighthouse Avenue, a really pretty avenue just to the West of the centre of Monterey, in Pacific Grove.

The trip to Monterey - sea otters, seals and more food!

After breakfast we left Evergeen Lodge around 11am today to head to Monterey to Mike and Jan's seaside home there.  The drive was quite spectacular and it included driving back into Yosemite National Park and then out via El Portal where we some more wonderful views.  We drove on then via Mariposa and to Merced for lunch.  Following lunch we drove on through the central valley where the temperature got up to just short of 30C.  We had the top down on the Mustang and it was pretty warm!

 We drove on via the San Luis reservoir and once we were over the hills and out of the central valley the temperature rapidly dropped to more like 13C.  Time for a jumper and putting the roof back on the Mustang!

After seeing some sea otters and seals in Moss Landing we got to the house in Monterey around 6.30pm.  We went out for a nice dinner with Mike and his son Tom at a restaurant near the Monterey aquarium called the Cannery Row Brewing Company.  Canning fish used to be big business in Monterey, hence the name of the area.  We some some seals sleeping on a nature reserve beach on the way to dinner too!

Yosemite Valley

We drove for about an hour from Evergreen Lodge today into Yosemite Park itself and to Yosemite Village to explore.  It was quite an exciting drive with the hood of the Mustang down and the temperature getting quite low as we got up to more than 6,000ft altitude.  We made numerous stops to see (and photograph) the quite stunning views along the way including the famous half-dome.

Once in the village we had lunch and looked at the visitors’ centre and a short film about the area.  We walked along to the base of Yosemite Falls to see quite a spectacular sight.  Later we drive along to Camp Curry and decided to walk to the Vernal Falls.  We quickly realised that the walk would have taken longer than the daylight we had left so had to turn back only some of the way up. 

We came back to Evergreen Lodge in time to see a beautiful sunset and also to have a dip in the lovely pool and hot tub onsite.  I’ve never been in a hot tub you can swim lengths in before!

We had another dinner at Evergreen, ready for departing tomorrow back to the coast to stay at Monterey for a couple of nights.

The trip to the Yosemite area

Mike kindly drove us to Oakland airport today to pick our hire car to continue our trip around California.  We were offered a very cheap upgrade to a convertible Mustang so we jumped at the offer.  We drove to our accommodation near Yosemite, the Evergreen Lodge and got there late afternoon.  We had a small explore and then dinner followed by quite an early night ready for a trip to Yosemite Valley tomorrow.

Moving on, Easter worship at St. James' Fremont and afternoon with the Scruttons

We had an early start this morning to get the BART train to Fremont where we were picked up by Mike to take us to his church, St. James' Episcopal church.  We joined with the congregation for Easter morning worship which was a joyous occasion indeed.  Lots of good liturgy, a great choir and a lovely welcome from many people present.

We went back to Jan and Mike's home in Fremont and shared lunch with them and their children (who are hardly children being 13 and 16).  We enjoyed meeting their cats, Percy and Peeta too.  We had a nice relaxing afternoon and after dinner watched the film Argo, about smuggling six american embassy staff out of Iran after the storming of the US embassy in 1979.  We all enjoyed the film greatly and slept well afterwards.

Brunch at Fort Mason, A walk along Crissy field and a visit to Golden Gate Park

We got the Powell-Hyde cable car this morning up to the coast area and walked along to Greens Restaurant to meet another old friend, Andy, from College.  We had a nice brunch there and then went for a lovely walk along Crissy field towards Golden Gate Bridge and back again.  The weather was lovely and we got some great views of the bridge.

Andy and family then dropped us at Golden Gate Park where we had an explore and visited the gorgeous Japanese Tea garden.  We then walked south to pick up a bus along Lincoln Street and into downtown via Haight Street, which is a fascinating throwback to the hippie years of the 1960s and has a huge diversity of people and businesses.

We got off the bus and had a look at City Hall before getting the Metro back to Powell and having a look around a shopping centre there.  We got the cable car back up to the hotel from Union Square.  We had a wonderful evening meal on the recommendation of a staff member at our hotel at a wonderful Indonesian restaurant called Borobudur.

SFMOMA, Jewish Museum and GLBT History Museum

We went to the San Francisco museum of Modern art this morning.  We both enjoyed lots of art, particularly the bright and bold Mexican Modern art.

After the museum we had a delicious Mexican lunch with lots of salad at a restaurant called Tropisueño, in the financial district.

After lunch we had a really interesting visit to the Jewish History museum - it laid out some fascinating facts about life for Jews in the Bay Area and it was good to see that the area had largely been safe and welcoming over the years.

After the Jewish Museum we met briefly with an old School Friend for a drink and then went down to the Castro to the see the GLBT History Museum.  It showed life for GLBT people through the latter part of the 20th century and had a fantastic audio tour to accompany the exhibition.  From the Castro we came back to the hotel for a wash and change and then went out to dinner (via a cable car) to a nice place called Bix, with Robert, Sean and Sian.

We finished the evening with a few drinks at Twin Peaks, one of the oldest bars in the Castro and with huge windows so you can sit and watch the world go by.  As we did!

Fisherman's Wharf, a submarine and Alctatraz

We got a cable car up to Fishermans wharf today and had a good wander around including an enjoyable look around the Museé Mecanique which had lots of old arcade games and automated musical instruments on display.  I felt old seeing a coffee table-style PacMan game among antiques - I remember them being all the rage when I was a kid!

Next we went on a fascinating tour around the USS Pampanito, a submarine that had done active service patrolling the Pacific Ocean area in World War II.  It had a brilliant audio guide that really captured the essence of how life had been on that vessel as it was narrated by men who had actually been there at the time.  We had a nice lunch at Alioto's and then briefly visited the chapel at the port but couldn't get inside.

Our main visit for the day was to Alcatraz.  We got a boat at 3.20pm and I was impressed to see it covered in Solar PV panels and with a wind turbine on the hull.  It was pretty much self-sufficient for energy and was a very smooth 15 minute ride to Alcatraz Island.  We enjoyed seeing the Island and the old and notorious prison that's on the island.  There was another excellent audio tour that gave a real feel for life in the prison and told us about a couple of escape attempts that had been made.  Nobody has ever been known to escape from Alcatraz with their life.  The prison closed 50 years ago this year and the whole island is now is the care and control of the US National Parks Service.

After returning to the mainland we got a trolley bus along to Pier 1, and saw the famous Ferry Building.  It has a nice indoor market now and we had a beer or two in a bar there.  Next we walked across to Market Street and got a cable car up California Street to Chinatown where we had a fantastic meal at a rather hectic restaurant called House of Nanking.  We walked back to Bush Street and had a couple more drinks in a bar up the road called The Summer Place.

A day with Mike and Jan - Golden Gate, Muir Woods and Sonoma

We got up early today to be ready to be picked up by Mike and Jan.  Mike is an old friend from school days who I've not seen since late 1991 so it was somewhat of a reunion too!  Mike and Jan live in the Bay Area now and had kindly agreed to take us for some sightseeing for the day.

We started with a drive along Lombard Street, the crookedest street in the world, and then went on to the Golden Gate Bridge.  We parked and walked along to the first support tower to get a feel for the size and perspective of the bridge.  It was quite misty so the views were not as good as they could have been but it was pretty impressive nonetheless.

After Golden Gate we went on to Muir Woods where we stopped for a coffee and then went for a walk to see some extremely old and extremely tall Giant Redwoods.  It was a good walk and was pretty busy, it being Easter Holidays for some.

After this we went for lunch in a town called Mill Valley and then on to another small town called Sonoma.  Both towns were pretty and clearly quite well-off.  We tasted some Californian wine in Sonoma and then Mike and Jan drove us back to our hotel via Alamo Square where the famous "painted ladies" houses can be seen - so typical of many movies made in this area.

We went out for dinner in the Hayes Valley area, using another cable car and a trolley bus to get there and a street car and a cable car to get back to the hotel.

First full day - cable car museum, Grace Cathedral, Mission Dolores, Castro

We woke fairly early this morning, still being somewhat on GMT.  We went and found some passes for the MUNI transport system which covers metro trains, cable cars, trolley buses and street cars (trams).  After seeing Union Square looking gorgeous in the spring sun we went up Powell Street on the Cable car and to the museum to see the history of the cable cars and how they work.  The cars work by gripping onto cables under the road that move all the time at 9.5mph.  The driver is called a gripper and controls the speed of the cable car wit what is essentially a huge pair of pliers that grips onto the cable to a lesser or greater extend depending on the desired speed.  San Francisco has the only system of this type left in the world now.

We had lunch at a nice Italian restaurant called the Nob Hill Café and then went to Grace Cathedral where we had a good explore and a cup of tea with a friend from Oxford, Jane Shaw, who is currently the Dean of Grace Cathedral.

Later we went to visit the Mission Dolores in the Mission neighbourhood.  It is a well preserved mission from the Catholic Spanish Mexicans dating back to 1776, before the colonists had got to the West Coast.  We walked on then through Dolores Park to get up to the Castro.

The Castro area is famous for being the area where Harvey Milk, the first openly gay US politician did much of his campaigning in the 1970s and was assassinated in 1978.  We visited the shop that used to be his camera shop in the 1970s (and above which much of his political activism was based) and a few bars.  We had a burrito for dinner then came back for a fairly early night.

Easter in California

We started out Easter holiday for 2013 this year with a 10 hour Virgin Atlantic flight from Heathrow to San Francisco.  It was uneventful but we did have some fantastic views of the Rocky Mountains from 38,000ft as it was very clear.

We got to our hotel around 5pm and found it to be friendly and welcoming.  We stopped for unpacking and a brief rest and then went for a wander as we were keen to make sure we saw some daylight and see sunset so we could adjust to the new time zone, 7 hours behind GMT as the US is already on daylight saving time (PDT).

We ate dinner in Chinatown in a simple but pleasant little restaurant called the Far East Café