So LA's not all bad.

We had a bit of time to kill before we had to return Maggie to her overlords, so we went to our favourite LA cafe for some breakfast.  With a midday cutoff, we figured we had enough time to make it to one great thing before the airport.  The best recommendation was for the Huntington Library.  I mostly wanted to see the gardens, but there's no part of the Huntington you're allowed to see before midday; the same time we were due to drop Maggie at LAX.

Looked nice.

Naturally, the one highway we needed to get out of Pasadena and to LAX was closed; we spent a very interesting hour with google trying to find a route which didn't take the 110.  We made it an hour late, paid our fees, reported the crack in the windshield and said goodbye to Maggie.  God bless her, she had taken us a long way.

Our bags were checked, our boarding passes collected, and we had 10 hours to wait until our flight boarded.  Continuing our tradition of being the softest backpackers known to man, we spent our last $150 on day passes to the Admiral's Lounge.  Several beers and snacks later, we were called for our flight back to Brisbane.

We left the United States of America as the date ticked over from the 18th to the 19th of November.  It had been an incredible trip.

Just a couple of lists

I will miss:
All the great people we've met, and meeting new great people all the time
American micro-brews
American football
College towns
Driving to a totally new place every couple of days
Every part of the west coast except LA
Northern accents
Having an accent
Finding location-appropriate driving tunes
The hamburger a day diet

I will not miss:
The smell of hostels
Weird hostel residents
American national beers
Los Angeles traffic
Intersections with four stop signs; one in every direction
Kids with American accents
The hamburger a day diet

San Diego is a really nice town.

The Liar wanted to check out some modern art in LA and, I later found out, get on a bus to Compton.  The Skeptic and I were done with LA and looking for an excuse to get out.  That excuse came in the form of a day-trip to San Diego.

Two-ish hours drive south of Los Angeles, San Diego is probably home to lots of cultural stuff (like a Zoo, some university campuses and the Chargers football team) but we didn't have time for that.  We just hammered Maggie down the 101 and eventually the 5, all the way to the coast so we could sit outside a bar at Pacific Beach, eat our last real hamburger of the trip and drink a locally brewed beer which tasted almost exactly like Carlton Draft.

Nice beach, despite the smog.  Just have a look the other way.

See?

The drive back took six-ish hours; our first real experience of LA traffic.  With two of us in the car, we were able to use the carpool lane most of the way back, so it was only the last 20 miles or so that we really slowed down, averaging three mile an hour.  We took so long, the Liar called to find out where we are which, if you know the guy, is pretty hilarious.

But we did make it back, headed to the pub and raised a whiskey to our last night in America. It had been a hell of a trip.

We went shopping in Beverly Hills

We found salad.

The warm winds of Santa Anna feel alright.

The drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles was very pretty, along the Californian coast.  We spent one night in Pismo Beach, and one in Santa Barbara.  Of the two, I preferred Pismo beach where we found a bar I've been completely unable to locate through any source (google).

The bar in question served Californian beer (better than you expect) and had a live band performing Scottish and Irish traditional music.

When we got to Los Angeles we met up with the The Almostdoctor and her crew from the Gold Coast.  They suggested walking up the Hills, so the next morning the Skeptic and I ran up behind the Hollywood Bowl.

From left to right; Ali and a milkshake.

It was interesting to meet up with people who were exhausted from real life and jetlag, and mix it in with our exhaustion from driving and being the coolest people on an entire continent.

Everyone got their stuff together to head to the beach.  We wandered for a long time to look for a bus on Hollywood Boulevard, then found out we had walked past a dozen.  And about eight Scientology centers.

 Hollywood is a place of terror.

After a stop at Rodeo Drive (some people enjoyed it, ask them about it) and a gander at Beverley Hills we caught a bus to Santa Monica.  The beach front there was my favourite part of the city.  After a bite of lunch we stood on the beach and watched the sun set.  Then went to a pub and drank, watched football and ate hamburgers.  For the sake of tradition.

California sun has sunk...

It was nice to hang out with a bigger group, and to talk to people from home.  Helped us start getting ready for our return.

San Francisco accessories.

We spent a day just wandering around San Francisco.  Hamburgers were eaten at the university campus, photos were taken of bridges.  Eventually, a cold beer was had at Fisherman's Wharf, at the Eagle, where the Skeptic and I had eaten lunch the previous day.

There was a loud noise from the pier, and we all wound up leaning over the balcony to see what the fuss was.

Seals make heaps of noise.

On the walk back up to Coit tower, there were a bunch of Americans taking photos of flowers on the hills.  I thought I'd better try to fit in.

I have no idea what this flower is.

This was the only night I went out in San Francisco, and I had a great time.  We went to some bar I can't remember the name of, drank local beers, made formations out of our piles of American change and met a friend's doppelganger in the deli next door.

We are not even remotely ashamed about this.

San Francisco was great fun and I want to go back.

The streets of San Francisco.

We decided to do a walking tour of San Francisco because we love hills and hate ourselves.  Our guide took us straight up Nob Hill to look at the cathedral.

I don't know how it can be a Cathedral without a bishop.

Grace Cathedral is modeled on Notre Dame, and would be a perfect replica were it not for the lack of Americans taking photos.  On the steps of the Cathedral we were told the history of San Francisco which, like many of the European cities I had visited a couple of months ago, was dominated by a fire.  This trend carried throughout the tour, as SF considers itself to be a very European city.

Next up we hit the Cable Car Museum, where we could see the huge wheels which run the city's single remaining cable car.

What a big wheels.

Then we headed into little Italy.  Outside the beat poetry museum a random octogenarian, not in any way associated with the tour, stopped to tell us about the history of the area; about the division of the city between the Chinese and the Italians, the way the mob cleaned out all the pimps from downtown SF and the eventual gentrification of the entire city.  It was the most interesting thing I heard on the tour.

Next, we got to take a look at some of the definitive buildings which make up the San Francisco skyline.

Which one do you like better?

Then it was back up hill to Coit Tower, which gave us a commanding view of the city.

Add caption

Our guide took us back down towards Fisherman's Wharf.  We went again the next day.

America: Last one, I promise.

From San Francisco, we drove very very slowly toward Los Angeles. Along the way we hit a couple of very nice beach towns, Pismo Beach and Santa Barbara. We were only in each town for one night, but they were both very nice, sun shining and beach adjacent. The rest of the driving, which wasn't very far, was broken by stops at outlet malls. These things are mind bogglingly big and mind bogglingly cheep, and we bought a mind bogglingly large amount of clothes and shoes.

The reason we were slowly making our way to Los Angeles, apart from flying out of LAX, was the arrival in this part of the world of our dear friend Ali Jones, and the Griffith Med crew. We gave them a night to get over there jet-lag, and the next day we all went down to Santa Monica beach to watch the sunset over the Pacific.

The gang arrive at the beach.
It's behind the trees, I swear.

Ali's just happy to be outside.

Bailey, Brodie and Stephanie. (Left to right)
The Med crew take photos of the sunset.

And then the sun went down.

Its kind of like a metaphor for the sun going down on our trip.

Except that isn't what happened. Ali and crew did depart the next day, but they were going to Las Vegas. Their trip was only just starting. And we had two days left.

So, the highlights of Los Angeles...

The Ronald Reagan Memorial Bowl.

2000 calories in a milkshake. The PB&C from Cold Stone.

And a day trip to San Diego.

Another nice day.

Another nice beach.

And then on the drive back, we got this photo of the LA smog.

There are hills in the background, I swear.

A few minutes later we experienced the reason for the LA smog, the last 10 miles of the drive home too over 3 hours due to traffic.

So that is it for the USA road trip. We spent 9 hours today in LAX, because we had to drop the car off at midday and our flight is at 11:50pm. In 13 hours time, we'll land 31 hours later on Saturday morning. Then on Monday, its back to the real world.

America: Here, I could live.

Eugene to San Francisco, via Eureka, is a beautiful drive. Part coast road, part Giant Red Woods and all epic. We had touched the coast road between Portland and Eugene, which is where we saw the Haystack, but this was our first long drive along the coast. It was nice to see the Pacific again, even if it was on the wrong side. I also noticed that there is a bike route along highway one, all the way down the west coast. I've already started planning another trip with fewer wheels.

We arrived in San Francisco, set up camp in a nice, central hostel and went for a bit of a run. We were aiming for the crookedest street to catch the sunset. Unfortunately, due to a need to do washing first and a few navigational fails, it was dark when we got there, and I have some photos of darkness. Not to worry, I had another go a few days later and had better timing.

You'll have to wait for those photos though, because I'm going to do this in order, and the next day we went to Alcatraz. The tour of the island was the first properly touristy thing we'd done since Chicago, with the exception of a museum in Seattle, so I wound up the camera and let loose.

The ferry ride offered a great view of the bay.

Alcatraz island.

Warning
Persons procuring or concealing escape of prisoners
are subject to prosecution and imprisonment.

There's history in them there walls.

Alcatraz has actually had four incarnations. During the original San Francisco settlement, it was an army barracks and fortification, part of a triangle of cannons that protected the entrance to the bay. The army built the first level of the main building on the island, but ran out of money.
During prohibition, the American public wanted its more violent criminals removed from society, so they put them on Alcatraz. Later the emphasis shifted to rehabilitation of criminals, so Alcatraz became unoccupied once again, until some Native Americans of all tribes moved in as a form or protest. They wanted the US government to give them Alcatraz in compensation for their native homelands. Whilst they were never given Alcatraz, the protests there were ultimately successful in seeing the government begin to recognise Native American land rights.

The fourth incarnation is of course as a national park and tourist attraction. Whilst the tour does mention the history, most of it is about the prison, because that's why all the films were made.

The view from Alcatraz.
San Francisco and the bay.

The recreation yard with the bay and mountains.

With a view like that, why did the prisoners even want to escape?

Oh, right. The cells.

They're really quite small.

And the guards seemed pretty intent on keeping them there.

These days, of course, there are more actors on Alcatraz than prisoners, so they let us leave. The best views of San Francisco are from the return ferry.

Well, you could probably get the same shots from the back of the ferry heading out, but that's not how we did it.

The next day we took a Fog City Walking Tour run by a Brit, Kelly Anderson.

The tour gang on Nob Hill.
The less well-off San Franciscans nick-named it Snob Hill. Why? The original name has a perfectly good joke built in.
The old trolley system still works.
Gets up some of the hills better than the cars too.
Downtown...
And the nightclubs.
Seams a bit drastic.

Fortunately there's very little evidence of airstrike, so I guess they're claiming success. I have to say, I agree.

This is the crookedest street I was telling you about.

The view is from Coit Tower.

And this is Coit Tower from the crookedest street at dusk.
I told you I went running again.

That night we went out and hit the bars. Including The Saloon, apparently the oldest bar in San Francisco, and a blues bar to boot. I was so happy I bought a CD of the band that was playing. I'm told I danced too, but fortunately there are no pictures of that, so you can't prove anything.

We spent our last day in San Francisco was spent walking around in the sunshine with a new Australian friend we met in the hostel. I've decided that I like San Francisco, I could definitely live there, even when it rains, which I don't think is all that often.

San Francisco gets my seal of approval.
Get it, seal? OK, I'll stop now.

Meanwhile, somewhere in America

America: I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out

Following the trend of the trip, Vancouver's beautiful weather gave out on the day we left, and we drove to Seattle in the rain. We spent the first night in Seattle checking out the local breweries and the first morning checking out the local coffee. Both were excellent.

Surprisingly, the weather that morning was pretty good too, so it was time to explore.

Its like some kind of a needle, pointing at space.

The International Fountain.

All in all, Seattle is very nice.
But again I suspect it will be cold and rainy most of the time.

Whilst we were at the Space Needle, we found a museum. For some reason we wanted to go in.

Science Fiction:

The Babel Fish.

Rock Music:

Some sort of a guitar vortex?
It must be art or something.

And Battlestar Galactica:

Mark II Viper.

The BSG exhibit wouldn't let us use a flash, so most of the pictures aren't great, but my camera did face-recognise the Cylon Raider, which I thought was cool.

Because it was a nice day, we went for a run along the bay.

Then we went to a fight,

and a hockey game broke out.

I actually really enjoyed the hockey. We watched the Seattle Thunderbirds beat the Red Dear Rebels 4-1 at home. The game was in the Western Hockey League, which is a level below the NHL. I had been expecting basketball on ice. A fast game with a small number of players on a small rink, I expected everyone to rush to one end, hack at the puck and each other for a bit, then rush to the other end and do the same. It turns out that hockey is actually much closer to association football (soccer). Tactically teams need to keep their formation, build plays up from the back and keep possession by moving the puck around rather than just smashing it forward and hoping for the best.

As a sport, I've decided I prefer ice hockey to American football, but as a live event a collage football game is very hard to beat. For that reason, we were aiming to be in Eugene Oregon for Saturday's game. On the way to Eugene is Portland, and we hear they have some breweries, so we thought we'd stop by and check them out.

Dark chilli chocolate and stout from the Hair of the Dog.

The next day we got up and explored the city.

Then we went to more breweries and met more locals.

They told us to go to the Haystack.And see the beach.

Then we watched the ducks pants the huskies. The ducks, the home team, are ranked 1st in the conference. They're a lot of fun to watch.

We spent the next day on the coast road to San Francisco.