Everybody's gone surfing... except for us

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Now I am really getting the hang of this, blogging from our room in Santa Barbara, with a wireless keyboard, which to be honest is not ideal as
it is rather clunky and I keep getting the wrong keys. But beggars....etc.

We moved from Napa to San Franscisco, to a hotel with a Spanish flavour, in that it was still partly under construction. However the location was very good, right on Union square. We did the obligatory trip to Alcatraz, which was terrific and a tribute to US salesmanship - after all its just a 1950's prison, with one or two notorious inmates - the kids were mesmerised. Chinatown is also great fun and we had some good meals both at the very cheap and very expensive end of the scales.

We moved on to Carmel, to see how the other half live, stopping at the Moneterrey bay aquarium on the way. I went there about 17 years ago and loved it and though it has changed quite a bit, the best bits are still the same; fantastic aquariums that blow the Sea-Life centre into te weeds, the most mesmerising of which is the jellyfish. Due to technical difficulties you will have to wait for photos.,

We came on from Carmel via Hearst Castle, former country home of William Randolph Hearst's (1930's publishing magnate - as recently played by Leonardo Di Caprio I think). It was full of stuff he had bought up from various European churches and palaces, we didn't find the contents so fascinating as the lifestyle it portrayed.

We are now in very expensive Santa Barbara in our most luxorious accomodation to date, with two enormous rooms and a huge bathroom. We have taken it easy today, before our onward trip to Disneyland tomorrow.
Though I love San Franscisco, I have to say the highlight for me over the past few days has been the coastline, which is beautiful, and still very wild in places, full of bird and animal life (we saw elephant seals near to Hearst Castle ) with white sand beaches empty in places. A bit like Norfolk really....

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