Road Trip : San Francisco

Onwards to California and despite driving through temperatures that topped 100F, disappointingly it was high 60s for our couple of days in San Francisco. It was the first visit for both of us and I must say I was surprised at how much small town charm it has. We stayed very close to Fisherman's Wharf in the nautically themed Argonaut Hotel.

During our 2 days, we walked a few of the ludicrously steep hills, tracked down the house they used for the film Pacific Heights (long story!) both walked and drove down Lombard Street (the crookedest street in the world) photographed the Victorian houses known as the Painted Ladies (see left) walked among the enormous redwood trees in Muir Wood and of course did the Alcatraz tour.

The boat trip to the island and audio tour of Alcatraz (on personal mp3 players) was pretty fascinating, but I was a little disappointed by the huge crowds of people. It seems to be a problem with anything touristy in America!

So it's day 14 and Jim has driven for about 22 hours since we picked up the Mustang in Seattle on Monday, I have dozed through most of it, so shouldn't really complain, but our packed itinerary is exhausting and we are both quite looking forward to being able to wash our clothes, eat home cooking and rest a bit! California & Oregon deserve a fortnight to themselves and a much slower drive up the coast, maybe we'll have a chance to come back and do that one day...

Tonight we have arrived at our last port of call, Los Angeles, which is crazy at the best of times, but after Michael Jackson's death yesterday it is on a whole other level, people selling RIP t-shirts on every street corner and news helicopters hovering over our hotel, but more on that in a few days...