Blogs from San Francisco, California, United States, North America - page 220

I visited the infamous prison on alcatraz island and am pictured here in one of the solitary confinement cells... nice. a guy called the 'bird man' spent over twenty years in this cell never meeting another human being. He was quite a clever guy though and spent the time learning foreign languages.... also in this picture is Ella MacPherson, a fellow Cambridge student who goes out with a friend of Roger's.... read more

We had an interesting start to today with Fiona frightening the life out of some poor wee Indian dude she walked in on in the toilet, to be fair I think she got the biggest scare, the whole floor was woken up by their united screaming, I was laughing to myself in bed, she came running back into the room with her arms waving, you had to see it...... The story goes that she just walked into the open toilet and the light was off, this wee chap jumped up from the pan waving his arms about, Fiona stood there screaming waving her arms about too. I wished I'd seen it...... It was battering down with rain all day, we done some washing in the morning then went for breakfast, I got chatting to some Aussie ... read more

As they say here, we were up early for breakfast and out by 9am, it was glorious day, about 20 degrees, we had planned to do loads today and first on the agenda was Lombard Street, "The crookedest street in USA" as it markets itself, you've seen in on the telly, a windy street of right angles that cars que up to drive down. The walk up to it is mental, we felt like we were going to fall backwards it was that steep. The street itself is small, and didn't look as impresive as I remember on TV, there were no plants or that on it with it being winter so I didn't look as big as I though it would, crowds of cars waiting to drive down it though, just one one of those ... read more

Well, my life is packed in my car, and I'm leaving the coast tonight. This isn't really the official first leg of the trip, but it's close. I will be trying to get up to Kirkwood for New Years, although all this snow may make things a bit difficult. But of course that means the skiing will be outrageous. Some time after Jan 2 is when the trip really begins, Dave and I will be leaving for Taos, New Mexico as a first stop, and we'll hopefully just follow this storm out to the rockies for continued powder. While every place will be a highlight, the first big destination is Silverton Mtn, Jan 13th, I'll be sure to post pictures, but in the mean time check out silvertonmountain.com. I'll be in touch once the real skiing ... read more

We left home at 07:00 on Tuesday (December 28th) and arrived in San Francisco (via Heathrow) at 18:45 local time, some 20 hours later, the Edinburgh - London flight was a nightmare, Fiona was sick at the landing and turned to me and said "I really don't think I like flying", magic I thought, only another 14 flights for a total of 65 hours to go........... The London - San Francisco flight was much better, good meals, 6 decent films and as much free bevie as we could take, the 11 hours didn't excatly fly in but it wasn't as bad as we though it would be, happy to report that Fiona held on to the contents of her stomach this time, "must have been nervous last time" she says. The customs department in America can't ... read more