From Yosemite in Eastern California's Sierra Nevada mountains, our route to the coast wound like a rollercoaster along the serpentine roads of the Napa and Sonoma valleys. We didn't stop to sample the region's wine, but on reaching the Pacific at Stewarts Point, we celebrated with a beer or two.
Over the next few days we camped, walked and cycled on the coast, but never actually dipped more than our feet into the sea, as the water's actually pretty parky around that area! The hippies and surf-bums we met on the coast made us feel right at home - Grayham even made friends with the seagulls in Bodega Bay (where, scarily enough, the film "The Birds" was made).
We had arranged to meet up with Sarion and Mum in San Francisco on sunday 26th september. By a happy coincidence one of my former PhD buddies, Katie Gapper, happened to be near 'Frisco for work purposes at the time (applying biosystems or some such thing), so we met up on the friday night for a very pleasant dinner. Unfortunately neglected to commerate the occasion by taking a photograph. D'oh!
The next day we visited a NASA research base near Stanford University. We arrived just in time to see an airship coming in to land - it seems it's quite a palaver getting one of those things out of the air; it took about 25 ground crew half an hour to secure it well enough for the passengers to disembark.
The next morning, we met Sarion and Mum in their hotel near San Francisco Airport. They had had a bit of a nightmare flight with American Airlines the previous evening, but were nonetheless bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready for a mosey around the city. After catching the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) train in, we found ourselves an excellent brunch in a hammed-up Americana-themed diner (bedecked in Halloween-alia of course).
A walk through town took us up the steep hills for which 'Frisco is so famed, giving us a splendid view from the top of the old prison on Alcatraz Island, eerily shrowded in mist.
After walking around Fisherman's Wharf, we decided to save our legs and ride back on one of the famous cable-cars.
Mum and I sat for the noisy and frankly hair-raising ride back to the BART station. However, Sarion and Andy seemed to think standing on the running boards all the way back, as we went up and down, up and down, up and down was a great laugh!
After a day in the city, we set off in Grayham down the coast towards San Diego. Each night Mum and Sarion stayed in Motels, while Andy and I kipped in the back of the G-dog. After a night in Monterey, we visited the truly awesome Hearst Castle.
Built by Newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, between 1919 and 1947, and used to entertain members of the Hollywood elite, the sprawling complex houses an uncountable number of antiquities from Europe and the Middle East. Egyptian sphinxes recline in garden-beds, medieval French tapestries line the rooms and Roman columns surround the enormous pool.
Having read about the place in the guide-book, I had expected the place to be a vulgar jumble of ill-matched, conspicuously expensive plunder from the old world. However, I found that it all managed to hang together quite well, and I rather liked the effect produced. A testament to the skill of Hearst's long-suffering architect, Julia Morgan.
After a night further down the coast, in Santa Barbara, we left the sea to head inland and into the San Bernadino Mountains. Here we stayed in a lovely lodge on the shore of Big Bear Lake.
The next morning we had the best breakfast EVER, at the Grizzly Manor Cafe. The ladies had ma-hoosive pancakes, while Andy had something that was called, and I quote the menu here: "The Mess - don't ask".
As well as eating and visiting castles, we managed to spot a good assortment of wild critters along the way. Sarion expertly caught this shot of one of the hummingbirds we saw in the beautiful gardens of the Mission at Carmel-by-the-Sea. They move so quickly, I failed to get anything on film (or viewfinder, as it is these days!).
At San Simeon we saw an enormous colony of seals sprawled along the beach. They're not dead - just sleeping!
Having spent 5 nights on the road, we arrived in San Diego. The original plan was for us to meet my American Grandma and Grandpa here, but unfortunately they were unable to make it due to ill health (everything's fine now though, so fear not). Although we missed G & G, we enjoyed our 4 nights in San Diego immensely. The photo shows the view from Andy and my hotel window over La Jolla Cove.
While in San Diego, we spent some time in Balboa Park, which is a large complex of museum and gardens near the city centre. We went to galleries and gardens galore, but my personal fave was probably the botanic house, specialising in bromeliads and orchids.
Andy's favourite was definately the Air and Space Museum - we had to drag him away!
Sadly, the time came to take Sarion and Mum to San Diego airport, from whence they flew to New Jersey to visit G & G. After waving them off, we headed out of the city and east to Joshua Tree National Park. "J-tree", as it's known locally, straddles the boundary between the low, hot Colorado Desert and the high, cool Mojave desert. It's the Mojave desert that is home to the species of yucca know as the Joshua tree, so named because the Mormons thought that the limbs resembled the raised arms of Joshua.
The desert was delightfully cool, and home to a surprising variety of plant life, including these cholla cacti.
We camped among the giant granite boulders that litter much of the northern half of the park.
Although there are no bears in J-Tree, it seems there's always some form of animal-life out to get you in America (not to mention the plant-life - those cacti are mean!). We spotted this tarantula walking past our van - arrrghh! I suspect the situation won't improve in Australia.
Of course the other great excitement of the last few weeks has been the big election. We are delighted that Mr. Obama won the day as, I suspect, are 99% of Europeans. Until about a month ago, I honestly held out little hope for the blues (well, I guess we were in uber-conservative Utah til a month ago!). Speaking to scores of Americans from many walks of life over the last 4 months, I became rather depressed to realise that the battle between Democrats and Republicans really came down to a fight between the well educated and the poorly educated (- in the bible belt states, I would say between the educated and the indoctrinated). Happily though, the intelligence and common sense of the majority won over the anti-intellectualism of the conservative right minority.
We are now heading north with great excitement because we're going skiing!! Mammoth Lakes (where we got snowed in in the last blog entry) is now open for the ski-season. We're booked into a hotel for 5 nights from Sun 9th Nov and can hardly contain ourselves - I just can't wait! Tune in soon to find out how we get on...
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