Blogs from California, United States, North America - page 963

The last few days of our trip certainly had their challenges. I think we were all getting a bit road weary. All this outdoor living had me suffering from California allergies as well. After a full day of riding through farmland and redwoods, Derek was disappointed that he needed to get back off the bike again for the sake of his bruised knee. In the meantime, Lisa, Bryan and I powered up to face the hills of northern California. Those hills were somehow not nearly as bad as we had expected. I suspect that we were actually all in pretty good shape by that point. We climbed into the mountains and spent a night at a gorgeous, warm, dry spot in Standish-Hickey State Park. It was so inspiring after days of fog and cloud that ... read more

Hello Folks! Hope you are all well back home? Hope so. Can't believe that I've been gone almost 2.5 months already! I'll be making my way home on Friday 15th June... although that's a few days before I'd originally planned and the reason for that is because I'll be flying home from New York rather than San Fran... I leave for New York tomorrow. When I arrived in San Fran and I had almost 3 weeks to go before my return flight to the UK so I thought what the hell I may as well go and visit my two friends I've made in NYC! It's good to have friends in nice places let me tell you!. The first friend Angie I met whilst I was in LA and she is pictured in my LA Limo ... read more

Yosemite National Park; the Heart of the Sierra Nevada. Everyone I had spoken to had said that it was the most beautiful place in the world so I was pretty excited to be spending some time there on a 2-night, 3-day camping trip. We were scheduled to leave at the ungodly hour of 6.45am so I duly borrowed someone's phone from the hostel to wake me up, it didn't work. Luckily I woke up at about 6.30 stared stupidly at the time, swore, jumped out of bed, panicked, swore some more, brushed my teeth, panicked, threw on some clothes and barrelled down the road to the pick up point where the bus was late! The group that I was going with was great, we all got on really well and it wasn't long before we were ... read more

I feel like there's not much to write today, because I've spent most of it in a prison/museum/bird sanctuary. Alcatraz was actually far more interesting that I thought it'd be - though I'm sure when they were telling us some lies about what went on there. That place is way too obscure for it all to be legit and prisoner-friendly! The weather today has actually been okay, sunny and hot at times. This made the boat journey to the island quite pleasant (and has given Aaron a comedy red nose!) and meant that things were actually visable beyond the mist. San Francisco itself looks amazing from certain places on the island, and when we were on the boat. We did the audio tour of the cell block, voiced by actual prisoners and guards for authenticity. ... read more

I am currently on the most awkward computer I've ever been on (seating and screen-size wise) so apologies if this lacks proper effort! We arrived in San Francisco yesterday - the airport was much busier than we've seen before because it's Memorial weekend over here (like Poppy day, but they make it last and get time off work). It took us a while to clear security, but the flight itself was only about 2 hours. The hostel we're at is nice - it's handy having free internet (though I'm currently at the worst PC ever!) and the room's fine. Had no sleep last night though because of some guy in our dorm snoring louder than I thought possible. Aaron was of course completely oblivious to it in the morning. Am hoping he'll have moved on ... read more