Big hills with a dodgy gearbox - San Francisco!

Dan…
But before that... Napa Valley! This is the home of California's wine region and as we both like wine we thought it'd be a shame to miss out. We had also arranged to meet Jens mum and step-dad here as they had flown over to San Francisco for a holiday.
Napa Valley is actually an area covering about 26miles and taking in 5 main towns, although not all California’s wine is made here, the majority of the grapes are grown in the valley. We started in the southern part, Napa itself and went to the tourist info shop where we were given so much info, loads of money off vouchers, various maps of the region and some personal recommendations.
Having walked out with all the info we could possibly need we headed off to Calistoga where there is an RV/camp ground. We eventually found it tucked around the back of the town and instantly realised that this place was way out of our league. The whole site was chocca block with the enormous palatial coach style RVs that seem to be so popular here. Fortunately there was a state park just down the road, so we checked in there and felt much more at home :-)
That night we met up with Jens parents and went out for a meal at a very nice restaurant, I think we managed to pick the one in Napa Valley with it’s own microbrewery and therefore specializing in beers instead of wines. It was great to see Jen’s mum and Ron and also so nice to be able to talk to someone English again!
The following day we drove down the road to the Sterling Vineyard for a spot of wine tasting and a tour. We sampled 3 white wines and a couple of reds. I’m a big fan of red wine, especially Shiraz and Zinfandels, but after a bit of nosing (that’s what you do to make it look like you know what you are doing!) both Jen aand I decided that their reds were a bit too oaky for our liking. We did indulge in a couple of bottles of white though, and as it’s the most expensive wine we’ve ever bought (at close to £15 a bottle!! Lol! Yes, it’s true – I usually pick them for their money off labels) we’ve decided to save it until our Birthdays :-)


By mid afternoon it was time to head off to San Francisco, an hours drive south. We planned to stay at the cities only RV park, and eventually found it wedged between the San Francisco 49ers baseball stadium Monster Park, and an industrial park. The whole “camp ground” is actually a parking lot and not really very nice. We checked in and we’re given the ‘best pitch in the site’. We then asked the camp ground owner about transport links into the city and he told us that the buses were too dangerous to use around this area, so our only option would be to use the camp shuttle bus at $10 each per day… Sod that! After seeing that the pitch was actually a wide tarmaced parking space next to a container warehouse we checked out and headed back up the 101 and into the centre of the city where we found a decent little motel that had parking without a height restriction. At £50 a night for a comfy room with a flush bog, shower, safe parking and the ability to walk down the road without being mugged it really was a no-brainer!


Having checked in, first job was to drive down to the Land Rover garage to see if they could fit us in for a small service. We’d supposedly had an oil change at a dodgy place back in Burlington, but I’m convinced all they did was change the filter and top up the oil as after 100 mile I checked the oil and it was black as a black thing on a dark night. The Landy Dealer was probably the poshest car dealer either of us had ever seen. It was based in a HUGE old building off the 101 in San Francisco and the show room had it’s own Chandliers. To get in to the service area you drove your car into the building and pulled up next to the service managers offices where they took care of you without you having to walk anywhere! They made room though and fitted Charlie in for an oil change and collant flush, we’d changed the air/fuel filters already and at the rate we’re topping up the gearbox oil I reckon that’s been changed at least every fortnight!
Just encase you didn't believe the bit about the Chandilers:


So after our first night at the motel we dropped Charlie Camel off at the chandelier clad dealership in amongst Jags, Bentleys, Lambos and Landies (somebody really should tell the dealership though that Lamborghinis are Italian, not English) met up with Mum and Ron and made our way down to Fishermans Wharf where we caught the ferry over to Alcatraz!
Did you know that Alcatraz has had a varied history. It was originally built as a military fort, guarding against water born invasion into San Francisco bay. It wasn’t until quite late on in the islands history that it became a prison for the most notorious criminals, the saying goes: ‘You break the rules you go to prison. You break the prison rules, you go to Alcatraz’ and was home to people like Al Capone and the Bird Man of Alcatraz. It closed in 1963 and then 6 years later a group of native Indians began a 19 month occupation of the island. The occupation actually fuelled interest in the Indians crusade and gathered lots of public support. But as there is nothing to do there, you can’t grow anything because there is no soil, there is no fresh water and hitting the town in the evening is a bit of a bind, they soon got fed up. In 1972 Alcatraz finally became a state owned National Recreation Area and in 1973, the first visitors began to arrive. Today it’s an amazing place. The audio tours, narrated by ex prison staff and ex-convicts are brilliant, they guide you round the prison buildings and you can pause at any point to have a nose around. It must have been a depressing place, it offers fantastic views of San Francisco only a mile and a half away, just so they could see what they were missing out on. (I tried locking Dan in a cell and leaving Mum and Ron there, but they all managed to find their way back again… sigh. ;-) – Jen )




We left the island mid afternoon and headed back to the mainland to pick up Charlie. All the jobs had been done, we paid the bill and they brought Charlie down to the service area for us… GLEAMING! They had washed and polished him and put that shiny black stuff all over his tyres and wheel arches! LOL… I don’t think we’ve ever seen him so clean… they even cleaned the bikes mounted on the back, although I was quite upset because they didn’t lube them up again! ;-) So, if you are even in San Francisco and need a car wash… book into BMC.

Jen…
We traveled down to Union Square for a bit of other-side-of-the-world-girl’s-shopping-trip and left Dan and Ron in the bar at the Cheesecake Factory which wasn’t quite as good as the one in Baltimore, but still had fantastic Cheesecake – Mm. By the time we left it was getting late and the queues for the cable cars were non-existent, this was much better than the 45 minutes earlier in the day! So we all jumped on and admired San Francisco at night whilst riding on the old cable cars. Luckily Ron had been to the museum a couple of days before so was able to give us our own tour – did you know those things have wooden brakes? Going down the steep hills it was all you could smell! We spent most the night when we returned looking out the Motel window giggling at seeing Charlie so clean, before that he hadn’t been washed since he left England!
The next morning we got up bright and early…well, ok, we had a very comfy bed so it wasn’t overly bright and early, but we were still at the Exploratorium in time for the opening at 10am. This is something we probably wouldn’t have done except for Mum and Ron getting a free ticket in their city passes and recommending it to us and I’m glad we went. They had a ‘free Wednesday’ day, so we didn’t even have to pay, although we did give a $10 donation as we thought it only fair. The whole place is basically in what looks like and airport hanger and is like the ‘Launch Pad’ floor of the science museum back in London i.e. hands on science! Cool! We made smoke rings, bubble rings and a HUGE bubble, made bubbles suspend in mid air... and some un-bubble related stuff to, but that’s un-important ;-) Dan was like a kid in a sweet shop and to be honest I was too, we even learnt some interesting things so it wasn’t completely wasted on us. There was an amazing optical illusion in the restrooms with the bathroom tiles, so who knows, I may now have a hope of getting Dan to agree to re-tiling the bathroom when we get home.

When we were all scienced out (and Dan had brought me a kit claiming to make a bubble as ‘big as a bus’) we jumped back on the bus (hopefully as big as my bubbles now) and headed down to Golden Gate Park. We had to go here for two reasons: a. Dan is a geek and wanted to see where the Klingon Battle Ship was landed in a Star Trek film b. They had a nice Japanese Garden and I like stuff like that. We met Mum and Ron for tea in the Garden and spent a while wandering around being serene and taking a ton of photo’s. We decided to make the most of our muni transport passes and jumped back on the bus to Union Square, I’d realised the Adidas Climalite training top Mum had kindly brought me yesterday was reduced to $22 (£11), them being £30 at home made me want to get another one! Sadly, the other one wasn’t reduced but it gave us a chance to jump on the trolley cars to take us back around to Fishermans Warf where we had to do some pressie buying and wanted to stop for dinner. Pier 39 is in this area and is home to a huge group of Sea Lions, they made it their home after an earthquake in the 80’s and haven’t left yet. It’s pretty amazing as the tour boats and people stand and stare at them from the pier side, they don’t seem to care though and just seem content to swim about in the waters, climb up into the sun and make as much noise as possible! We stood and watched for quite a while.

The Trolley cars are from all over the world and basically a working museum, Ron was telling us about a group of people from England who came over with the express aim to ride every single one, I can think of better ways to spend my time but I have to admit they were fun.

That night we said good-bye to Mum and Ron as they had to be at the airport bright and early the next morning. It was excellent to see them and even better as they’d had a couple of days in San Francisco before us so could give us lots of help and advice – it was nice getting to a city and not having to figure it all out ourselves! Oh, and they brought Chocolate and Marmite – Wahoo! It has made me realise how much I’m missing everyone at home though, especially as I’ll hopefully be an Auntie in a couple of weeks… wish I could give my Bruv and Jules a hug! Mum texted though so it was good to know they got home safely.

The next morning saw the end of Charlie’s rest period as we were due to head down the Big Sur coastline towards LA. We couldn’t let the opportunity go though and had to drive some of the steepest streets and of course the twistiest. Luckily Dan didn’t get chased by the Police so we didn’t need to launch Charlie over any of the crests! They were awesome, especially when you try to run down them in croc sandles and realise you can’t stop. Heading out of San Francisco we went towards Monteray and through lots of little towns and villages, America is busy gearing up for Halloween as there are pumpkin patches everywhere. We stopped in Santa Cruz at Safeways only to find a ’67 Series II Doormobile in the car park – Coooooool! Needless to say we had to park next to it and just as we pulled up Linus, the owner came wandering out after picking up some lunch in his lunchbreak. He was a lovely bloke and a member of the SII club, it was a shame he couldn’t stay and chat for longer as he was on his lunchbreak, but he was talking about coming over to the UK with a SII, so hopefully we can hook up with him then and show him around some lanes etc.

As we headed down the coast the characteristic rocks and blue sea of the Big Sur coastline came into view. It was beautiful, but sadly, it seemed most of the land was privately owned, either by the Navy or private resorts. You could look, but not investigate. Due to this, I think we both agreed, Big Sur has the reputation but Oregon is more beautiful and due to the access it provides, more deserving. However, we did see Elephant Seals which were pretty cool, another animal to tick off the list:

We stopped at a state campsite for the night, next to a mad lady and her 5 cats. She came over in the morning to lecture us about living simply and not causing a lot of pollution, which as quite funny when you looked at her in her 27ft RV and Honda parked next to it. That put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day, I don’t like being lectured at the best of times, but when I’ve only been awake for 10 minutes its not a good thing. We drove down the rest of the coast and into LA. It’s amazing how Mediterranean this bit of the US is. We spent the afternoon doing washing (4 loads!) and Dan sent me to the gym as I was being grumpy – much better now  The best thing though? We are checked in at the KOA next to the fairground and when we checked in the lady said: ‘are you here for the off-road show tomorrow?’ ‘eh?’ we said! It turns out there’s an offroad show here this weekend and judging by the amount of Jeep’s in the car park it’ll be a big one. Guess what we’re doing tomorrow…


P.S. Marky Bloke - saw this and thought of you, this is the colour your Eddie *should* be!