Meeting Winston

Firstly, Happy Birthday Dave! Hope you have a great time with Dad down.

We left the hostel this morning with a minor case of fear and
trepidation. We needed a sim card, a coffee, and a shuttle to Dublin.
We got the coffee, some fruit (finally) and delicious pastry (queue
for waffles was too long), got the sim card, and checked out of the
hostel.

Spent a nervous hour in the foyer of another hotel, waiting for the
shuttle, chewing our nails, watching traffic, and wondering just how
big our RV was going to be and how we would ever manage to drive it!
The shuttle arrived and we left for Dublin, via the Bay Bridge and a
beautiful view of San Fran's industrial areas.

Dublin is a small(er) city on the outskirts of San Francisco, where we
were to meet our travelling companion - now known as Winston. Winston
is a mammoth piece of machinery, far more equipped than we ever
imagined. He's 25ft long, 11ft high, and about a lane wide. Yet to
open the hood, so not sure of the engine, but it's plenty powerful. He
has cable TV (where available), DVD player, outdoor and indoor
showers, outdoor and indoor tables, "patio" light, two double beds,
two kitchen sinks, fridge/freezer, oven, stove, microwave, toilet, did
we mention the kitchen sinks?!

But the piece de resistance is the magic button which (when Winston is
stationary) can be pushed to move the left side wall outwards about
2ft. This provides us with even more space, quite ridiculous really.
The hotel in Vegas will probably feel small! Pictures to follow.

The first few minutes (okay, hours) were very stressful, especially
given that we headed almost straight onto the I580 and the CA120. Both
are massive motorways, about 6 lanes wide (each way), and absolutely
choc full of cars, trucks, vans, cop cars, etc. Once we got off the
interstate, we were amongst the beautiful Californian countryside.
Rolling hills, green crops, brown grasses, fruit trees, 10kms of
windmills on the crest of a range, and some tiny farming communities.
In the aptly named Farmington (near Copperopolis) we were delighted to
see that the local Fire Station offered a side service as a depot for
abandoning babies.

Having lightened the load, we continued on to Angel Camp, home to the
delightful Angel Camp RV Resort. Complete with emu, this has been a
good first stop, despite 3 U-turns to get here. When you see the
portraits of Winston you will soon see that such a manoeuvre is one
likely to raise blood pressures.

So we're now settling down to sleep. Heading to Yosemite early tomorrow.

Biking to the Bridge

Alcatraz

San Francisco - Owned

Up at 6:45am to taste the hostel's free waffles - you have to make them yourself, so just as well that it turns out Mark has a latent talent for waffle making.

We got to pier 33 by 9:00am in time for our boat-ride to Alcatraz. The only boat left during our time in San Fran was this one, it cost an arm and a leg (per person) and meant we were also locked in for a trip to Angel Island. It turns out this was awesome. Alcatraz was quite simply amazing. And Angel Island was beautiful, and actually kinda culturally significant as it turns out (a Civil War fort, WW2 post, immigration detainment facility for Chinese arrivals - and also the birthplace of Chinese-American literature - as well as a Cold War missile site).

Back to San Francisco at 3pm and, after a lunch of crab and shrimp chowder served in a bowl made of sourdough bread (one 'Merican meal served both of us and we couldn't finish it!), we rented bikes and set off for the Golden Gate. It was a really cool way to see the Fisherman's Wharf area as well as the park surrounding Golden Gate Bridge. Back to Lombard Street (allegedly the crookedest street in the world, which may be true, but it seemed contrived to us and like it has just been done to attention-seek) then, a whole heap of steep, steep walks later we jumped on an over-full tram car. It surprised us that the Golden Gate bridge is SF's most popular suicide spot. Tram-cars seemed much more likely to kill you. Mark got yelled at by the tram driver for leaning back just as another tram car was passing very close and going in the opposite direction.

As we were waiting at a bus stop, a crazy homeless man starting giving lip to a ghetto chick. He picked the wrong girl, cos she maced him. Four times. Turns out mace is less of a spray and more of a liquid jet. Karen and Rosie: Don't worry Mums, we weren't in any danger - it was one of the day's highlights!

We passed through Alamo Square, home of the 'Painted Ladies' - the pretty pastel coloured houses which showed at the start of 'Full House' and then headed to Haight for a Lonely Planet recommended pizza restaurant. We ordered one large pizza for the two of us, but should have stuck to the entree size, because we didn't even get half way.

Bus, walk, home. We're exhausted but we love San Francisco. It's like Wellington, only bigger, better and the wind is colder.

Flag count: 46
Fruit/vegetables consumed: 0

Hostel

We're really lucky that our hostel room has a great view of the Golden
Gate Bride. And unlimited free waffles.

Weather report

In one piece

After a long wait in LA, we've made it to San Francisco. Experienced the first of many Starbucks "coffees"  and Funyuns (a portmanteau of Fun and Onions. Clearly their marketing guy excelled in puns 101).


As we've come to expect from taxi drivers, ours was slightly mad. He somehow managed to sing, write, drink and swerve his way into the city, all for a very reasonable price. The hostel is fine, for some reason there is a microwave and fridge in our room. 


After a short recovery nap, we headed our for a sight-see. Bitterly cold here - about 10C - which threw us a bit, and we had to warm up with burgers and beers at a Mexican bar. This evening we've seen to Union Square, Macy's, Nob Hill, a dozen or so trams, and a vaguely important church.




Stats updates
Flags: 5
Burgers: 1 (each)
Buds 1 (each)

Boarding Pass Number Two

First boarding pass!

The Final Countdown

Down to 12 sleeps!

Here's an pic (stolen from www.elmonterv.com) of what our RV might be link. It's meant to be 25' long, and will no doubt be a total beast to drive. And it sleeps five.

It's revenge time for every minute of my life wasted behind a damned Maui camper on NZ roads.