San Francisco to Los Angeles

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USA National Parks 05-07-'08 to 18-07-'08

The following facts and figures are from our tour guide.

California

San Francisco

On the hills on the approach to San Francisco there was a huge wind farm (said to have 5,000 turbines). From the look of the turbines and their stands it would appear that this was a very early installation - all were low with some very low on open web towers. There are now 50,000 wind turbines in California.

We entered San Francisco over the Baybridge; the one where the upper deck fell onto the cars on the lower deck. Another bridge is being built beside the present one but it won't be finished for years.

In the evening we went by bus to Chinatown for dinner. Beth enjoyed it. We then went over the Bay bridge to Treasure Island (an ex-military base) to view the city lights. A raccoon was raiding the rubbish bin. It did not seem to be bothered by us. Our hotel had a message on the pillows “Caution. Comfy pillows may cause drowsiness. Avoid using heavy machinery while using.”.

Next morning John and Hazel took us to the camera shop that the like and Beth bought a new camera because the old one had the sulks and would not turn on. Then we took a cable tram down to Fishermans Wharf. We could smell the hot wood of the brakes as we stopped on the downhill. I was photographing the mechanism at the base of the levers when one of the drivers stood beside me looking down at the mechanism until I noticed him. We had a cheerful and interesting conversation about the system and health and safety legislation.

From Fishermans Wharf we took a short Red and White Fleet boat trip under the Golden Gate Bridge and then around Alkatraz Island and back to the wharf. This allowed us to see the other side of Alkatraz. The top of the bridge was in cloud.

We walked up to Telegraph Hill and went up in Coit Tower. Lillie Coit bequeathed 1/3 of her fortune to adding beauty to the city she loved. After several committees and many donors the tower was built in 1929. It gave an excellent view of San Francisco. The lift driver asked what nationality each person was; there was a surprisingly wide range of nationalities, but the only one, other than American and Australian, that I can remember was Russian.

There were seal lions at Pier 39's K dock at Fishermans Warf. They started coming in 1990 and the number has grown since then to 900 annually. The Marine Mammal Centre together with the PIER decided to let the seal lions stay there and initiated an educational program. Good for the seal lions and probably good for business on Pier 39.

Next to Pier 39 there was a yacht, complete with helicopter, that we can only dream about.

San Francisco to Los Angeles on Route 101

California got its name from book written in 1510 in which Califia was a mythical perfect place. Its nickname is the Golden State and its motto is “Eureka. I've found it.”

On the way out we saw the port facilities in Oakland that took the shipping activities away from San Francisco. We also saw a little of Stanford University, Berkley and Silicon Valley from the 4 lane each way highway.

We bypassed San Jose to avoid the heavy traffic.

Along the highway there were large Recreational Vehicle sale yards that seemed to be bursting at the seams with RVs; probably something to do with the housing loans crisis.

There is the bell each mile along Highway 101. It is called “Historic El Camino Real” and was the route between Franciscan missions when the Spanish attempted to settle the land from 1769 to 1810 and built 21 Catholic missions. The missions were 1 day's horse ride apart.

There were lots of irrigated vegetables grown along here. Gilroy is the garlic capital, Castroville is noted for artichokes and there were lots of strawberries grown in raised beds covered with plastic. Sand was exported from the sand dunes in this region to Florida and Hawii.

Monteray

We drove down Cannery Row in Monteray where the sardine canneries operated 24 hours per day. Only 40%!o(MISSING)f each sardine was used for food, the rest, heads and tails were used for fertilizer. In 1946 the temperature of the water changed, there were no sardines and the industry collapsed. There was no mention of overfishing! Some of the buildings remain but many have been replaced. We visited the marine museum there. For me the highlight was an albatross standing on its special stand. We were not permitted to touch it, nor did it spread its wings but it was nice to be close to it. The other highlight was the big tank with a great variety of fish including 1 or 2 thousand sardines, various sharks, rays and others. One sardine swam straight into the open mouth of a hammer head shark. Yum. We watched the otters being fed. There was also a tank in which kelp was growing. There is a 3,000 m deep canyon just off the coast.

Pebble Beach is a private town and there is a charge to drive on the roads. There were mansions and a golf course.

Carmel has a population of 4,000. A Carmel Mission was set up in 1771 and the present church was built in 1793. More recently it started as a bohemian and artists settlement but yuppies have moved in. Houses do not have mail boxes and it is not permitted to eat in the streets - we ate in the open air mall. There were flowers in hanging baskets and kangaroo paws and banksias growing in pots there.

Vineyards in the Salinas Valley get their irrigation water from the Salinas river.

Pismo

Pismo is an Indian word for tower. We spent the night in a new hotel in Pismo and had a nice “snack” meal at the hotel. When the fog lifted as we travelled south we saw 2 oil platforms out to sea. There were many identical houses in an estate.

Santa Barbara

In Santa Barbara we saw 6 oil platforms out to sea. It looked to be an expensive place. The pier is 2,248 ft long and would have given a good view of the town had there been less smoke haze. We saw Oleanders and Bougainvillea along the foreshore, and a brown Pelican and a Pacific Gull on the pier. There was a bridge out to an island.

Hollywood

We stopped long enough in Sunset Boulevard to have lunch in the Kodak Building, photograph “HOLLYWOOD” from the upper walkway in the Kodak entrance, and walk the full length, 2 or 3 blocks, of the famous part. We were advised that if we had our photo taken with one of the “Stars” such as Marilyn Munroe or Zorro we had to pay them. Since we did not particularly want to be photographed with an elderly Marilyn etc. we walked on past.

There were some interesting Stars, for example Big Bird, represented in the pavement. I was disappointed to see how many of the pavers in the footpath were broken and either left or had been patched with bitumen.

A short tour through Beverly Hills showed us where the rich and famous live and where they do their shopping. We saw Marilyn Munroe's home, where Elizabeth Taylor married Richard Burton, the expensive shops in Rodeo Drive and the Beverly Wiltshire Hotel where Pretty Woman was filmed. Even the Budget Rent-a Car had a Range Rover, Mercedes sports car, a BMW and a Porche on their lot. Etc.

Santa Monica, Venice Beach & Marina del Rey.

There were old melaleucas with very twisted trunks along the Santa Monica foreshore, a wide beach and long jetty that is also an amusement park.

Venice Beach also called “Muscle Beach” was not as wide as wide as Santa Barbara's. Some of the buildings near the beach has brickwork, arches and pillars to make them look Venician, but they fell somewhat short of their ideals. Actually with the stalls there the area looked cheap. But there were lifeguard stands for as far as we could see in the smoke haze.

Marina del Rey was a marina that went on and on and more on. Lots of expensive yachts there.

We spent the night at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott before flying back to San Francisco on Saturday 19th of July where we and in the Tuscan Inn stayed near Fishermans Wharf. Although it was getting late we took a bus back to the shop near Union Square where we bought Beth's camera (Discount Cameras I think - good service but dearer than mail order) and bought the battery we had ordered.

Saturday 20th July we went to Yosemite N.P. Nd on 23rd July we flew with Alaskan Airlines to Ketchikan for the Cruise West tour.

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