Day 191 - Anaheim, Los Angeles - 13th February

We decided to spend today at church and in making the final preparations for our departure from the US. There is tons to do when you pack up an RV after living in it for a month. We needed to pack up our cases again and empty all the food items from the fridge and cupboards.

So we found our local First Baptist Church and joined them for their Sunday service. They were as welcoming as usual although this was a much bigger church and with a congregation of about 70. It was a bible study type of sermon again but put over in a very simple and straightforward manner.

After lunch we allowed the boys an afternoon of watching the TV in the community room at the RV park. It had a huge TV with satellite reception and had 350 stations. There was no one else there all afternoon so they were able to gorge themselves on their first TV (apart from CNN in the odd hotel) for over a month. Towards the end of the afternoon, after I had completed some packing jobs, I watched a Star Trek movie with them. Great stuff.

Day 190 - Anaheim, Los Angeles - 12th February

After our elephant seals we drove for another 7 hours, making it the longest day of driving on the trip. We finally arrived in an RV park right next door to Disneyland. It's probably the best RV park we have stayed in.

As early as we could, we set off in the morning to visit Universal Studios. We traveled back up the highway to Hollywood and spent the day doing the studio tour and visiting their various attractions. They did a brilliant show from the Waterworld movie complete with a lake and motorised boats and jet skis. We all enjoyed the variety of entertainment that was put on and the professional manner in which it was presented.

We left and came back via Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard but by this time the boys and Julie were not at all interested in anther traffic clogged street, so they all lay down in the back of the RV. I cruised up and down (if that is possible in a 25 foot RV) and at least got to see the Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

These are all pics from the Universal Studios Tour.

Day 189 - Monterey to Anaheim, Los Angeles - 11th February, 2005

We survived the car park and left soon after dawn, as we did not want to get caught by the ranger. As soon as we got on the road again we saw what we had been missing in the dark. Highway 1 down from Monterey, in the area known as Big Sur is truly magnificent.

The road, often perched high on the side of a cliff, winds in and out of countless coves and headlands. The Pacific Ocean somehow seems more Majestic than any of the bodies of water that we have come across so far. The waves are higher, slower and more powerful. You can sense that there is not another piece of land for thousands of miles.

We often came across surfers, who had got up as early as us and were out waiting for the big one. We watched several groups and some of the surfers would only attempt to catch one wave every 10 to 15 minutes. They would pass on all but the very best. In an hour of surfing they may only stand up on their boards for perhaps 4 minutes or less. It must be worth it.

Further down the coast we came across a beach littered with Elephant Seals. On two small beaches there were perhaps 200 of them. This turned out to be a defining moment in the boys education. Now we have talked to them a little bit about the birds and the bees but we were not quite prepared for the Elephant Seals.

Elephant Seals breeding on the Pacific Coast of California about 35 miles south of Monterey on Hwy 1. This alpha male weighs about 800 lbs. His mistress perhaps 250 to 300 lbs. The boys finally got the "birds and the bees" story. There was nothing else to do ....... or say.

Julian and Sammy with their "vet". He told them about the service he had provided for his country and the complete lack of respect he had received as a result. Apparently he lives of $59 per month pension. He was a nice enough guy. You just don't know though ..... (click on photo to enlarge)

Day 188 - San Francisco - 9th February, 2005

We went straight downtown SF this morning and found a good car park near Pier 39. We spend a long time just walking around taking in the air. We spoke for some time to a "homeless vet" who was begging for money and he told us his story. He said he only got $59 per month from the state and was begging in the street just to live. He has a great Colonel Saunders face with bushy beard and moushtache and he was wearing a stetson. A little further down the street was another guy who's sign read "No more lies - I just want the money for beer". You just don't know. He didn't look like an alcoholic to me but he was certainly getting a laugh and money from passers by. You just don't know.

San Francisco has more homeless people or people who live on the streets than anywhere else I have seen in the western world. I suppose many of the homeless and disenfranchised from all over the US have figured it out that it's better to be on the streets of California than chilly Chicago. Mind you there were loads in Toronto even when the temperatures were way down below zero.

When you see most of these guys it's clear that although some of them could go to shelters and find accommodation, they really are people who could use some help. If they had friends and family with means they would probably be looked after at home. But the system here does not cater for those who have no one else to turn to. The state has not made provision for those that just need a little love and affection and have none.

We went to see the sea lions on Pier 39. It's the second time for me and I was left with the feeling that they really are ugly, smelly, noisy creatures that should be sent back to where they came from. They only arrived after the earthquake of 1989 and although they are not fed or obviously encouraged to stay they come back every year. I'm not sure how many people now think they are an attraction or a distraction but the Japanese seem to like them and they are the visitors currently with the biggest numbers so they will stay.

We drove around a little, going up the steepest of roads with the RV struggling to get up. We did not have much time (we are flying out on the 15th) so we started out to LA after lunch. We knew we would never get there in the day so we had planned a few stops about half way down the coast. We also wanted to go via the Monterey Peninsula and down the coast road Highway 1.

This of course took a lot longer than we had anticipated. We arrived in Monterey around 4:30 pm and unhitched the bikes for a ride along the beach trail. I had a great run out with the boys taking about 2 hours visiting a great playgound with a climbing wall, cycling along the beach path and examining all sorts or marine life on the way. When we got back to the RV, Julie had prepared supper. We ate up, put the kids to bed and started to drive again.

The coastal road started to get narrower and narrower and it got very dark. If you stopped the RV by the side of the road and turned the lights off you could see virtually nothing. There was a one eigth moon which jusgt gave enough light to see that we were perched up on a high coastal road looking over the Pacific Ocean. It was frightening and beautiful at the same time. We realised that it would take us ages to go along at this rate so we found a National Park car park and stopped over night right there. It was the first time we had not parked up in an RV park but there were 4 or 5 others doing the same thing so we had some comfort in their presence.

Alcatraz Prison Island

Day 187 - Sacramento to San Francisco - 8th February, 2005

Got up and got going as we wanted a quick look around old Sacramento, we had seen a barber shop to get Sammy a hair cut and we needed some groceries.

I dropped Julie and Sammy off at the barbers and headed to the gas station to fill up. In California they don't trust you to fill up without pre-paying so I went into the shop for them to get an impression of my card. The pretty Indian girl in the shop started taking to me with a Leeds accent. We had a good long chat as neither of us had met someone from home for ages. She had moved to Sacramento with her husband 13 years ago (I also met him) because UK was too cold. But she had not lost a bit of her accent and it was so funny to hear her say "lovely" in that Leeds accent here in the middle of Sacramento.

I collected Julie and Sammy from the supermarket. Sammy was in tears because of his hair cut. He has decided that since being in Canada, where many of his classmates had shoulder length hair, he did not want it cut under any circumstances. Since he could no longer see through his fringe we decided that this policy should be overruled. He recovered somewhat but was pretty miserable for the rest of the day. It's like his hair is his and he controls it and he liked the statement that it made especially in contrast to Julian's crew cuts. But that cutting it was about losing control of that one thing he could change about himself. He has also been, since birth (well almost) quite shy about the birthmark on his face and likes his hair to cover it as much as possible.

After doing these chores we went for lunch to the old town of Sacramento. It's where the town was originally settled and still has all the old wild west type of buildings in it. It was very pretty and we went to the most fantastic museum I have been to recently. It was a railway museum and it was excellently done. Absolutely one of the best.

We went for lunch in a Canjun restaurant but the Jumbulya (sp?) that I had, looked and tasted like dish water so that was not much of a success for me although the others enjoyed what they ordered. After lunch we set off in earnest for San Francisco.

We arrived across the Bay Bridge (the really long one divided into 2 parts by a small island, not the Golden Gate) and went downtown and out up Highway 101 over the Golden Gate and took our photos from the headlands on the North side of the bridge. There was a film crew up there with a reporter from Channel 5 Eyewitness news doing a story about them City putting up the price of the toll on the Golden Gate bridge. We had a great talk to the reporter about our trip and his family. Marvelous.

We then headed to the south side of the Golden Gate bridge, unhitched the bikes in the Presidio and cycled across the bridge in both directions. The sun was going down and it was a perfect ride.

That night we stayed in an RV park about 15 miles north on the bidge on 101. We were lucky, they only had one site left when we go there. All full timers again.

Day 186 - Mommoth Mountain, CA to Navato, CA - 7th February,2005

We woke to a freezing cold RV, no water (they did not have it on in the winter due to freezing) and it was snowing, cold and windy.

We put on brave faces and dressed to ski. After breakfast we headed up the mountain. As we got nearer to top it became apparent that it would not really be a good day for us fairweather skiers. It was really nasty at the top with a wind that brought back memories of Brian Head the previous week. We all agreed to give it a miss and truck on to our next destination.

We were on the east side of the Sierra Nevadas mountains and wanted to go into Yosemite National Park. In the winter all the passes across the tops of the mountains are closed. So it was necessary to go North up to Lake Tahoe, around the lake on it's west shore and back down the other side. So we set off for Lake Tahoe and the Redwood forests.

We had a beautiful run and got some great photos but when we looked at the map to see how far back down the other side we would need to travel to get back into Yosemite we decided we had run out of time and needed to head towards San Francisco.

The journey down the mountain was done in blizzard conditions and towards the bottom, in driving rain. On top of this we were travelling on a classically badly maintained US highway. This almost shook the RV to pieces and drove us all nearly insane. It's the monotonous, clunk-clunk every 20 foot section of concrete that you drive over. No wonder they make US cars with such mushy suspension. It took us the rest of the day to get to Sacramento and then about 45 minutes to find the RV park. There are absolutely no signs in Sacramento of any use to man or beast.

It was a decent site run by KOA but 90% of the occupants were full timers. So you always think you are entering someone else's domain. I wonder if KOA meant to establish so many trailer parks when they set up their Kamping business. I guess they can't turn away the business especially in the winter off season.

We unhitched the bikes and the boys went cycling around the site for an hour before dinner.