Leaving America

This is it, our last day in the US of A.  Our last sightseeing stop for America was getting close enough to the Hollywood sign to be able to get a photo of it.  Then, drop the car off and check-in - that took 1hr, as they spent extra time looking at Eric's passport.  He even went through the full x-ray screening, while I went through the standard one (like we have in NZ) with the boys - obviously I look innocent.

Now, enjoying a glass of Californian red in the departure lounge with hubby while the boys play on their netbooks.

It has been a great trip, and I really hope the boys have got more out of it than they display at the moment.  The last day or two seem to have been long and more trying, maybe because we are all aware we are near the end of this leg of the holiday (we'll be with you soon in Tahiti, mum!).  But, I am pleased we have had this amazing opportunity to travel together and to see amazing natural beauty as well as man-made wonders.  To see the realities of life in large cities (cars, homelessness, mental health issues, as well as the other extreme).  And, homelessness is not just for large cities, of course - people live in dug out caves in and near Joshua Tree.

Have lots of great family moments (driving into a valet carpark in Malibu and driving straight out again as we didn't want to go to the club - we were just trying to see the beach!  Robin has been giggling all day about how well we got that valet man!).  Have a few bad memories too (boys just not stopping when asked to - what else is new?!).  But, the good outweigh the bad!

Now, sober up before we board, then big hug for mum in Tahiti!!!

Back in Los Angeles

Today was another driving day.  One map we had said it would be about 3 hours and another map said it would be about 3.5-4 hours to get to LA from San Luis Obispo (SLO) - it took us all day!  Of course, that includes the 30mins we had to spend waiting for Eric to buy a Ryobi 18V Cordless Hard Surface Blower, which he intends to use to blow bees out of the boxes.  It is cheaper to buy it here than in NZ.

Before we left SLO, we popped our head inside the Mission (as the door was open for prayer), then we walked round more of the historic area, including the old Free Library (one of over 1,600 donated to the country by Andrew Carnegie) which now houses a small museum.  Thanks to an email from home, we became aware of a local tourist spot in SLO, Chewing Gum Alley!  Yep, an alleyway plastered on each wall with chewing gum of every colour!  It smelt like chewing gum!

 We drove for some time, and stopped in Lompoc at the site of the original Mission La Purisima, founded in 1787 but destroyed in an earthquake in 1812.  When it was re-built, they did it some miles away, and it is now a State Park.  Apparently, it is very well re-constructed, with an authentic atmosphere, even costumed interpreters.  But, with cost and time against us, we headed on.  Lompoc itself is where more than half of the world's flower seeds are grown, and June to September are colourful times to drive around Lompoc.  All we saw was one field of colour, and lots of vegetables.

Next stop was Solvang, a town founded by Danish educators from Minnesota as a folk school.  There are windmills, half-timbered buildings, thatched roofs, and storks, and lovely fattening danish pastries!

There is also a Mission, Mission Santa Ines, built in 1804.  Parts of it have been destroyed by earthquakes and fires, but it has been restored and has a lovely painted altar.  The walls of the mission are 12 feet thick, hence that building surviving earthquakes.  It is when the whitewash comes off or the tiles come off the roof that the adobe underneath gets eaten away and destroyed and collapses.

 Next stop was a windy drive to see painted caves at Chumash Painted Cave National Park (no entrance or parking fee!).  The actual cave is blocked off, but you can see through the wire gate.  They believe that Shaman from the Chumash Indian tribe did the paintings, but they don't know why or what they represent.  The black circle in the top picture below may represent a solar eclipse.

Next stop was Santa Barbara.  Again, because time was against us, it was just a fleeting visit - we went up to the mission, and looked at it from the outside.  In 1925, much of Santa Barbara was flattened by an earthquake, but the mission survived.  It was founded in 1786 and sits on a hill, looking down over the town.  The Chumash Indians there were very clean, and built a clothes washing basin or lavanderia, which has a carved mountain lion's head for a spout at one end, carved by a Chumash artisan and believed to be the oldest public sculpture in California.

We drove through Malibu Canyon and then along the coast, looking for stars at their Malibu beach homes in the early evening (must have been too early for them to be about though!), and the boys played on the beach with the pier in the background as we tried to find some reasonably-priced accommodation.  We have ended up over by LAX, the airport, ready for our departure tomorrow afternoon for Tahiti.  But, we do have a reminder of Malibu with us - there is sand on the floor and in the boy's bed!

Half way back to Los Angeles - or, half way from San Francisco?!

 Today saw us farewell San Francisco, driving south along Highway 1, the scenic, slightly longer / slower route between San Fran and Los Angeles.  But, it afforded us lots of stunning vistas, somewhat reminiscent of the drive along the Kaikoura coastline back home in New Zealand.

Most of the beaches that are accessible to the public along the coast are State Beaches, with parking fees to go to the parking bays.  But, we were able to pull in to a couple to use their facilities, without paying.  At one stop, we saw driftwood sculptures and huts on the beach.

Eric and I had a look at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse, one of the tallest in America (at 115 feet tall).  It was first lit in 1872, but is currently closed so it can be restored and earthquake strengthened.  The lens, which is currently out of the lighthouse, weighs 2,000 pds.  There is a Youth Hostel next to the lighthouse - quite a cool place to stay, I think.

We then did a drive-through of Monterey, seeing Cannery Row (where tens of thousands of sardines were canned before the sardines suddenly disappeared), and California's first theatre.  We didn't stop in Monterey for any length of time, as we were too tight-fisted to pay parking fees anywhere!  Plus, we didn't really have time to do it all justice.  That had been the same at Santa Cruz, where we drove along next to the famed boardwalk, but didn't (a) pay for parking or (b) pay, or queue, for rides on the roller-coasters or ferris wheel.

Carmel was very quaint, similar to places like Arrowtown or Hanmer Springs.  We didn't go into the mission there, Carmel Mission, but we did look over the fence at it.  It is the mission where Father Junipera Serra is buried.

As I said, there were great views, rugged coastlines, crashing waves, jagged rocks

Last day in San Francisco

So, today started foggy and not too bright.  But we did not let that deter us.  We dressed warm, took raincoats and headed off in the car to the Golden Gate Bridge.  Eric has already walked over it a couple of times on previous visits to the US for work, so today it was time for Karl, Robin and I to master the 1.2 mile trek.  The sun shone brightly upon us all the way, and it was a very pleasant walk.  Although, I now have the sore throat that Eric had before we went to Yosemite, so by the end of the walk, I was feeling a bit beat, and a bit breathless.  There are over a million rivets on the bridge - fact.  On average, one person jumps off the bridge ever other day - another fact.  In an effort to curb that, there are signs along the length of the bridge, with phones for people to use.

We met up with Eric in Marin County - he had parked and started walking towards us - and drove through to Saucilito, a small town about 1-2 miles from the bridge.  We stopped at a marina with house boats.  Turns out, it is one of very few privately owned (or could be only one, can't quite recall) co-op marina.  There were some interesting houseboats there, in different degrees of repair or otherwise.  There is also a small island in the marina, which is actually the remains of an old ship that used to travel from San Francisco to Tahiti in only 21 days.

Our next stop was the Mission District back in SF, and in particular, Mission Delores, the 3rd most northerly mission and the 6th of the 21 missions to be built.  The adobe walls were 4 feet thick, and it suffered no damage during the 1906 earthquake, whilst the church that was next to it at the time was destroyed (you can see a photo of it with hearses passing by below).  Pope John Paul II has been to the current Basilica, in 1987.  It was a lovely Mission and Basilica, and there are a number of graves of important early San Francisco families there, including the 1st Mayor and the 1st Governor.  There were 36,000 adobe bricks in the Mission, and 5,000 Native American Indians died building it due to diseases from white people.  There are stained glass windows honouring all of the 21 Missions in the Basilica.

We drove through Castro, San Francisco's centre for the gay and lesbian community and were going to get a biscuit or brownie from a famous shop, Hot Cookie (apparently shaped like private body parts - boys laughed at that idea!) but roadworks along the road put us off.  Instead we headed back to the hotel where we found ourselves locked out of our room - in error, Eric had not booked for tonight, but all our stuff was still as we had left it in the room.  Got that sorted, and got buses to Fisherman's Wharf, to go to Scoma's for their $5 bar menu - we ordered clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl, crab cakes, and shrimp, as well as wine for Eric and I.  We weren't sure how the boys would go with it all - we had to buy 2 more clam chowders for us all to enjoy!  Scoma's is down a small alley, Al Scoma Way, on a wharf, but the food was great (thank you to Lawrence for the recommendation).

Dessert was an ice-cream in a cone or a hot chocolate from Ghirardelli's, along with free chocolate squares, of course!

Last activity of the day was a bus ride (on a bendy bus, much to the delight of Karl and Robin, who sat in the bend!) to go shoe shopping.  Eric likes the shoes here for the boys, and says they are cheaper, so instead of simply ordering them online as he usually does, he took the time to get the boys to try them on.  Oh, both Eric and I got a pair of shoes too!

Leaving San Fran tomorrow and heading south.  Two days to get to LA, along a scenic coastal road that is supposed to take about 12 - 13 hours to travel - the way we have been, it will take us twice that long!  My mum leaves NZ very soon, to meet us in Tahiti - exciting!

More of San Francisco

Today has been the warmest day we have had consistently all day here in San Francisco - the sun shone, the wind stayed fairly low-key - it was very pleasant.  And, we spent a lot of the day indoors!

We walked past the City Hall and surrounding buildings (very ornate, renaissance-style) and hopped on a trolley bus up to Alamo Square, to see the famed Painted Ladies.  One of them was under cover, getting a new paint job perhaps.

There are so many ornate houses / apartments here in San Francisco, not just the Painted Ladies.  The fretwork is so detailed on some of them, and nicely painted in contrasting colours.  Painted Ladies is actually an American architectural term referring to Victorian and Edwardian houses and buildings painted in 3 or more colours that embellish or enhance the architectural details.

 

 We then hopped on another bus and made our way to the Pacific Ocean, alongside Golden Gate Park, over 1,000 acres of public land, with lakes (we passed one used for model yachts which had turtles in it!), polo fields, the National AIDS Memorial Grove, a number of art galleries and museums, a Dutch Windmill, a Japanese Tea Garden, and bison fields.  A lot of the grass is covered with small mounds of dirt - if you are lucky, you can see them moving and growing larger, as a gopher pushes more dirt out of his hole!

We then spent a good part of the afternoon at the California Academy of Sciences, one of the largest museums of natural history in the world.   We saw a rainforest in a 27m glass dome (with butterflies, macaws, frogs, snakes, lizards); aquariums (with coral reef, tidepool, and swamp habitats, as well as a colony of African penguins); the largest completely digital planetarium dome in the world (we saw a movie about dark matter and dark energy); and the green roof (over 1 acre of grass and flowers, and associated insects and birds).  The building is very environmentally friendly, with photovoltaic cells, rainwater collection, natural lighting, etc.  There were a lot of interactive activities, and lots of opportunities to look for insects, fish and reptiles.  Robin found it difficult to leave an exhibit if he had not personally seen all the animals that were supposed to be in it!

Our next stop of the day, for only a short time (as we'd already seen aquariums, and were getting tired / hungry) was the Aquarium on the Bay.  They had 2 touch pools - Robin took delight in touching the stingrays and the sharks.

I personally liked seeing the jellyfish and other floating marine life (see below).

We finished off back in Chinatown for dinner - $5.99 for all we could eat Dim Sum - a new experience for the boys, who gallantly tried quite a few items.  Their favourite - the fortune cookies!!

San Francisco, again

After breakfast, we were off, all dressed in our winter woollies.  We weren't going to be caught out this time with the cold winds that San Francisco is known for.

First stop was a guided walk with a National Park Ranger, learning how the waterfront area changed over time and how it became a tourist area.  There are a lot of old wooden boats buried under roads and buildings in downtown San Francisco, some excavated and some not.  We then popped into Ghirardelli again to get some more of their free chocolate squares (only 1 each at each store!).  And, as a special treat - ice-cream sundaes all round for lunch.  The boys had 3 scoops of ice-cream, with hot fudge sauce, marshmallow sauce, whipped cream, a cherry and a chocolate square - neither of them could finish it!  I had a simple sundae - 2 scoops of ice-cream, dark hot fudge sauce, cream, chopped almonds and a cherry - I was able to finish it and had a little bit of Robin's one.  Eric had an espresso sundae, with ice-cream, whipped cream, 72% chocolate sauce, a chocolate square.  He then ate the remainder of Karl's sundae then finished what I had left of Robin's.  As he left, he informed us that we were not to touch his stomach!

California Poppy, the state flower

Next stop was walking up the hill to Lombard Street, the crookedest street in the world.  We walked down it (249 steps) then up again on the other side (253 steps).  The boys realize it is simply a normal street with lots of bends in it and flower beds to make it bendy, but it is still good to go and see it (not sure if Eric will drive us down it or not).

We got a cable car down the hill, then a tram down to the Farmers Market on Pier 1 - we got some apples and tasted a few samples along the way (not sure where Eric put his samples after all the ice-cream, but he did have them!).  Then, tram back along past the piers to Pier 15 and 3 hours at the Exploratorium, a hands-on, full-on, wonder-filled learning, discovering, tinkering centre.  I went round with Karl - he raced from one exhibit to another, stopping at those that caught his eye (particularly those with computers) before racing off to the next one.  Just as well he had a bright yellow cap on today - it made it slightly easier to spot him when I got left behind.  Eric was with Robin - Robin spent over 30 mins at one activity, creating vertical marble runs.  There were different areas, focusing on the different senses and on social interactions, magnets, etc.  As I said, it was full on, and we all enjoyed it.  For more, see www.exploratorium.edu

Last stop before heading home was grocery shopping.  We tried to get on the F tram to go back past the piers and up Market Street to a nearby Target store, but 2 trams went past us, with people stuffed inside them like sardines in a can!  So, we started walking to Market Street and found a Safeway - a family-sized microwave lasagne dinner and baby carrots for dinner, and a few other supplies for our last few days here in the US (strawberries, blueberries, bread, sliced meat, cereal).  It is difficult to believe that the US portion of our trip is soon to end (it is Saturday here - we leave on Thursday to meet my mum in Tahiti for 3 days).  It seems we have been away for a long time, yet the end is coming too fast!

But, before then, more exploring San Fran tomorrow and Monday!

Below are some of the trolley trams we have been on, each painted to represent different cities that had trolleys and trams.

Oh, and the sun did come out, the fog cleared and we shed our outer layers - it was a very pleasant early afternoon weather-wise.