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Published: September 28th 2009
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Tori on the cable car.Monday, we packed up and drove again all day. Nevada really is a state with nothing going for it, no wonder they adopted gambling as there would be nothing here to bring in any economy at all otherwise. After Reno we travelled up and over some more mountains, got stuck in a very long traffic jam due to huge road works. The truck started getting very hot with the AC on, so had to turn that off and open the windows !! Lovely, California is in the middle of a heat wave and it reached up over 101 degrees, thats about 39 C. At the summit of the mountain it said we were 5,000ft up by the time we hit San Francisco we were at sea level. California definately got the better deal of the land as we are in very fertile country again, its pretty dry at the moment as they are in the middle of a drought.The very little grass they have got is as brown as the Hawkes bay gets. We wound our way over marsh land to the north of San Fran to a little place called Novato. Found our campground, what a difference this one is.
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The Fog, the Bridge, the City. Absolutely no space as all, every trailer is stacked in next to each other, if I could put the awning out it would hit the trailer next door and they are full. Someone cancelled , thats how we got a booking. The gas prices have shot thru the roof too. We left Salt Lake City paying $2.50 GAL, here were paying $3.30 GAL thats nuts !!
Tuesday, we drove into San Fran. As we are about 15 miles north of the city we came in over the hills and onto the Golden Gate bridge. WOW !! it was just like a postcard, covered in heavy fog you could hardly see the bridge. So I quickly ducked off the main road and drove up the hill next to it , to a look out. I was very excited as it looked unbelievable, there were boats coming into the harbour and they were blowing their fog horns somewhere down below us. Then we drove over the bridge and we couldnt see the top of the bridge , thats how thick the fog was. We could feel the fog blowing up the hill around us, it was a weird feeling. Drove around by
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Golden Gate bridge. the harbour for abit before parking downtown. Got a big shock to see all the homeless and beggers everywhere, of all the cities weve seen in the last 3 months. This is by the far the worst for that. We hate it , being hit up an asked for money by every bad smelling bum in town just because we look like tourists. Found Chinatown, had a great time looking and buying cheap crap down there, its the 2nd largest chinatown in America, so the book says. After shopping we drove down the crookedest street in the world, the kids thought that was a great laugh. Driving up and down the steep city streets in entertaining just in itself. When you look towards the end of the street and all you see is sky, its certainly different.
Wednesday, we drove out to the north of here to the famous Napa valley, home of thousands of wineries. Nestled in a long valley between very brown hills that seems to wind on and on. Some with very flash buildings and surroundings, others just rows of grapes growing. Weve been drinking a real nice wine called "White Zinfandel" from Sutter home family vineyards
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Us driving onto the bridge covered in fog. of Napa. So we drove up the valley looking for it, sure enough its quite a large vineyard. They had free wine tasting going on, with cheese and nibbles in the reception area, I think a bus load of people must have been in there as it was quite busy and then thinned out after awhile( Or perhaps we were just in there drinking free wine for too long !!!!) After there we found another one that only sells their wines from the vineyard itself. It has a very nice Deli and wine shop with free wine tasting also, so we stopped there for lunch and sat out under a huge big Oak tree and had our lunch with a very nice bottle of their wine. I think we might have to get on the mailing list !! I could have quite nicely lay down and had a nap after that but no it was back to driving home. On the way back we passed a speedway track that was advertising wednesday night drags tonight, so after tea we headed out to watch. $20 for a car load and this place was huge.Only problem was it was a bit of
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Looking up at the crookedest road. an ameateur night I think. Anyone who wanted to run their car could go and sign up and have a go. I was keen to take the dodge for a run but Mrs C reckoned we needed it to get us around the rest of the country. There were pick up trucks versus little woks (noisy Jap cars like hondas, toyotas etc ) they were doing like 14-18 sec runs etc. It got really cold at night too, with a bit of a wind blowing into the stands where we were. There was only about 20 of us watching so we shot the gap and came home a bit dissapointed.
Thursday, we drove back through the fog into town again. Found an all day carpark for $10 , Bargain !! walked down thru Fishermans wharf and along to Pier 33. Where I picked up our Alcatraz tickets that I had booked online a few days earlier. Lucky I did as they were sold out for that day and a big cruise liner was parked up next to us and alot of the people from that ship were trying to get tickets to go over to the island and couldn't get
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Having our lunch at the vineyard under a tree. any and were getting a bit upset obviously.It says you have to book at least a month in advance. It was spose to be 24 degrees today but due to the fog not really lifting, it felt really cold. Lucky we had jeans and sweatshirts in the car. Once onto Alcatraz we got our headphone sets and set off on our self guided tour of the prison. 1st was thru the large open shower block then into 'Broadway' they called it as this is where the newby's had to walk to their cells past all the ones that had been in there for years. The cells are 9ft by 5ft and have a bed, toilet, hand basin and a shelf for your bits and thats it. The cells are three stories high and all the doors on one floor closed at once from a big handle at the end of the row.14 people died trying to escape, either got shot or drowned in the ice cold waters . 3 were never found and were presumed drowned, if they didn't drown they reckon they are living out their lives down in South America somewhere. We went thru the solitry confinment cells,
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The cruise ship that parked up in San Fran harbour. just very dark, cold cells. It housed the worst of the worst of American criminals from 1938 to 1963 when it was closed due to the fact that is was too expensive to upkeep. A bunch of Indians jumped on it after it went into decay after years of neglect , it took them 18 months to kick them off. Then it became a National Park and a tourist destination. It was definately a cold and harsh enviroment out there. Back on the boat and back to the mainland, we walked around the many touristy shops down there.
Friday, we headed up into northern California to the Redwood forests. Oh yeh, last night when I went to get some milk from safeway , I found series 2 and 3 of the Dukes of Hazzard , much to my childrens delight. So the 3 hour drive up the Redwoods actually went quite quick for them as each one is about 3/4 hr long. Our 1st stop was at the largest Redwood tree to be carved up before the enviromentalists got in there. Yes someone actually took a chainsaw to the base of the tree and cut a big enough hole in
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A foggy Alcatraz. it for me to drive my Durango thru, Only just I might add. Some of these trees have been around for 2,000 years. This one was 2400 years old, 315 ft high and 21 ft in diameter. From there we drove up the road a bit to the Famous' One tree house' . Its a house that is 32ft long and 7ft in diameter and was carved out of one whole tree. Its on a steel frame and they took it on a road show around America in the 50's.Then we drove down the 31 mile long 'Avenue of the Giants' . It was very impressive, these things are huge. They've built the road to weave its way thru the trees, at times its hard for the sunlight to get through the branches, very picturesque . Then we came to another drive thru tree but we couldn't fit thru that one. It was hollow, it has wire ropes supporting it. After the first ten miles of big trees , I guess it got a bit boring, but I was enjoying myself . So we turned around and headed for home, stopped at Wendy's for tea.
Saturday , we were all
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Inside one of the cells !! a bit tired this morning as Josh managed to fall out of the top bunk at about 1.30am !! Kylie rushed to see if he was alright but he didn't wake up. He was still yaking on about something and tried to get back into the wrong bunk and fell straight asleep. Lucky he did as the rest of us were all awake by now.Anyway saturday was always going to be Six Flags day. There is a Six Flags theme park here and we can still use our seasons passes from Washington DC and New Jersey. As they are only open in the weekends now as the season is drawing to an end. Alot of it is to do with most of their staff are kids , so during school they don't have enough employees to run the place. We were there right on 10.30am for the opening of the park. We walked straight onto two of the best rides, no lines , excellent. Even Josh went on the 'Tony Hawk roller coaster'. This park is a combination of a theme park joined in with a zoo. So we went and watched the Dolphin and then the Tiger shows. Two
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The 3 stories of cells in D Block . guys inside a shark tank was pretty interesting, one was talking and the other was watching his back for sharks !! We came back out to the car to have our lunch. Man it was hot. So after that we went on a log ride which always get you wet and cools you down. Tori had to buy here Dippin Dots ice cream and Josh finally bought himself a 'Funnel cake'. Donut mixture swirled around , deep fried then smothered in icing sugar topped off with whipped cream. You might as well just poured the sugar bowl into his mouth. That pump does come in handy some days. Another raft down the river ride got me soaked and then we watched the whale show which was pretty good except for the whale painting on a white canvas which you can buy after the show and all the proceeds go to the welfare of the animals !! YEH RIGHT !! The girl stuck a paint brush in the whales mouth and moved the canvas around in front of it and called it ' ART'. So it was back to the campground for a swim and another installment of the Dukes of
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Tori coming out of solitary confinment. Hazzard after tea.LOL Oh yeh and to bake my bread !!
Sunday, we parked up just before the Golden Gate bridge with all these cyclists that were going for bike rides around the place as it was such a nice sunny morning. We walked under the bridge over to the pedestian side of the bridge, the other side is for bikes. 'Bicyclists' as the sign said . We could see for miles out to sea, Alcatraz, Downtown San Fran. There were big boats, little boats, kayaks, tour boats even a big freighter came in. We walked out to the middle of the bridge and just admired the view. Then we drove back up the hill we went up the first day we got here and looked at the view without the fog. Drove down by Fishermans wharf again and jumped on the cable car. $11 each to ride all day. We got a seat on the outside and off we went into town, the hills it climbs up and down are really quite amazing how steep they really are. Had Burger King for lunch before waiting in line to get on the Cable car again. Lucky the free entertainment in
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The dodge driving thru the tree. this city is good. Tori said to me " People here are very unique aye dad", that they are. There are all sorts. One guy walking around in his black short shorts, with his belt/ harness thing around his chest and thats all on, the buskers, the smelly bums !!( sorry homeless). When we finally did get on the cable car back it was full, so we all got to hang on to the side of it. OSH would have a field day !! We only just missed some parked cars , let alone the other full trams coming the other way. But I did get some good video footage as I was up the front. From there we went out to the Malibu Grand prix. This is a place where you can drive small version grand prix cars. 1st Tori and I went in a two seater for 4 laps. The guy said a time in the 50's is good, 60's is OK, 70's is slow. With Tori yelling and slipping and sliding all over the show we did a 58 seconds. Too bad she could hardly see out the front. Next I had a go in the one
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'Famous' One log cabin. seater cars which are spose to be faster, I was beating on it and I could hardly get it to do a better time than Tori and i did. 57.5 secs was the best. Meanwhile Josh was over on the smaller ones having ago by himself. He said he went quite well and had a ball at the sme time. there was a birthday party of girls in front of him, so that took awhile. We got our Malibu drivers licenses to prove we were there. Groceries on the way home as we are stocking up before heading out to Yosemite tomorrow.
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How do you think you would go in solitary confinement Tori? You and me we'd never manage