Californication

Hi everyone!
Apologies again for the delay between blogs, time has got away from us and we have had a bit of trouble accessing the net for decent periods of time.
Well last entry took us up to our interesting encounters in a dodgy San fran laundromat (you will be pleaed to know that I behaved myself today in a DC laundromat with no serious grief befalling us, but more of DC later). We survived dodgy dirty cold San Francisco, and walked away with a sharpening of our street smarts, educated on the workings of street dealers, hookers and the ways in which the copious homeless people survive life on the streets. One homeless guy had a pretty cool sense of humour, wandering around town with a cardboard sign saying "happy friday". It was certainly an eye opener, somewhat disturbing to see the daily block long lines of the homeless seeking food and clothing from a local church mission, however that was juxtaposed against some of the more beautiful sights of the city. Not to mention lovers fornicating in a park next to Universal studios filming scenes for a new TV series called Trauma, while a homeless dude gatecrashed the filming to serenade the cast and crew with a rendition of "my girl"! We saw him later singing the same song in a lolly shop seeking change from customers, After being told to move on by the owner of the store, he called her a racist and then told her she need to change cause the president is a blackass now!

We enjoyed a trip across to the island of Alcatraz and took a self guided tour through the prison, and despite Jeff's threats and posturing, he did not dare to lock Stacey up and leave her in a cell! We actually met an ex-inmate named Darwin Coon of all things....lucky he didn't grow up in Australia! Upon our return to the mainland we carried out the obligatory tourist tasks of walking through North Beach and Chinatown to union square, where there was a pretty cool art display...good enough to make sure stacey didn't runoff into the adjacent Macys or Tiffanys. This was followed by a crowded cable car ride to Fishermans Wharf...where we retreated to Starbucks to warm up with a Hot Chocolate or 2. The line was so long for the return cable car we decided to walk up the steep hills back into town...they are on an incline of close to 40 degrees and went on for 500m or so...luckily our legs were steel springs and they helped us run like leopards!

We also walked about 15km around the city in a day spent exploring the Golden gate Park in search of Bison which we eventually managed to find, enjoyed a picnic lunch in the park and then set off to walk the golden gate bridge. The sun actually made a brief appearance which was great to see the harbour and the bridge, not unlike another harbour city we can think of, except we have never suffered frostbite crossing the Syd harbour bridge and the top of it doesn't get lost in fog or rolling cloud!

After leaving San Fran we left with high hopes of rediscovering that californian summer we had heard so much about. we spent 2 days heading down highway1 along the coast to LA, past santa cruz, santa barbara, monterey and the Big Sur. It was pretty foggy and cool so we didnt get to appreciate the beauty of the coastline in full, but it was still very pretty, and we would be keen to revisit for a few days camping if we could...probably on the same beach with the elphant seals, as they looked pretty comfy there laying on the sand (if they weren't fighting with each other that is).

Our road trip ended in typical style with a stop at a Pancake House (not part of a chain which is hard to find on the road), where we scoffed down a few pancakes and iced tea and coke...and stacey was too scared to try the root beer! This was followed with a traffic jam that lasted about 5 miles and took 2 hours to get through and we then sailed through on a couple of interstates back to the Airport and retired to the Crowne Plaza for the night...topped off with a feast of buffalo wings, calamari, salads and sandwiches ala room service style...all in readiness for the haul across the continent the next day..