“California Dreaming”

(Mile – 918)

We have been told by so many people that the drive up the West Coast on route#101 is well worth it, and we finally found out for ourselves when we drove from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Each turn on the coast road presented a vista more beautiful than the last.

Ah the beauty of route #101. The dramatic cliffs, the pounding surf, the coaches of Asian tourists.

We passed dramatic cliffs that plunged down into beautiful turquoise waters, we saw colonies of HUGE elephant seals basking on the beach during their summer molt (Lela commented that they make the same sound as a blocked drain) and believe it or not, somewhere around Big Sur we even passed a cow pasture that had zebras in!

They are resting here, but when the males start sparring it’s drama on every corner

It has always been a dream of mine to visit San Francisco, and five nights were simply not enough. What a place! We arrived early evening and the legendary mist had already rolled its way inland, and even though we had just come from winter in Australia we were not prepared for such a chilly city especially in late summer.

Having said that our hearts were warmed by the locals. We had heard about how laid back they were but we couldn’t believe how nice and genuinely helpful everyone was.

The iconic Golden Gate Bridge – snapped during a rare break in the mist

Eagerly clutching a print out of our friend Gregs “Guide to San Francisco” we hopped on the #37 Corbett bus which took us directly to the Castro District to start the day with an AMAZING “philharmonic” coffee at Philz http://www.philzcoffee.com/

Castro is one of the U.S’s first, best-known and biggest gay neighborhoods and subsequently it is a great place to people watch. The sun finally burnt through the mist and the change of weather bought out some of the less dressed locals. The first completely naked man wearing only a backpack and a pair of flip flops took myself, Lulu and the kids completely by surprise, but it soon became normal operating procedure for this part of town.

Topping up the tans in Castro

We walked The Lands End Trail for a very misty view of the Golden Gate Bridge, climbed Twin Peaks for a 360º view of the entire city and took a few rides downtown on San Francisco’s vintage cable cars.

San Franciscos vintage cable cars. Travelling in a piece of history.

Jule and I did some serious comic shopping at a myriad of brilliant comic shops while our equally geeky girls paid a visit to the knitting paradise of ImagiKnit   www.ImagiKnit.com

The boy who cried wool

And yes, we did the classic tourist trap thing with a visit to Fishermans Wharf for dungeness crab while we watched the evening mist roll bay into the bay once again