Eugene, San Francisco, LA, Hollywood, Las Vegas, Area 51, The Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater, VLA and now heading for Texas.....

Well well Mr Epic Post Demon.... we meet again......

This blogging malarkey has a habit of catching up on you eh? That post title is pretty daunting to think about as I sit here with a blank page :( Might as well get on with it then!

The drive from Salem to Eugene was pretty uneventful and we managed to find a decent motel near the centre of the town. Although it was a college town the students didn't go back for another 2 weeks so the place was pretty quiet. We decided after a quick shower and go for a beer and a few games of pool and before we knew it found ourselves in "Jamiesons". After some beer and pool we got talking to some folks and just enjoyed the night.

After a hazy breakfast we hit the road...

Again the drive was pretty standard.. actually wait, I just remembered we got pulled by the cops on that night! Basically stu was doing 73 in a 55 :) The guy was nice enough to let us off though :)

Scottish Accent 2 - American Cops 0

So anyway, we got into San Francisco close to midnight and actually made our entrance heading south across the Golden Gate bridge, quite an entrance! We quickly found a street packed full of hotels and motels, all of which were full… We eventually found a dodgy little motel and got settled for the night. The next morning, by way of unanimous decision, we decided to head a little out of town and try and find a nicer hotel for the same price. Our magical GPS told us there was an Econo Lodge somewhere in Belmont (Around 20 miles south of the San Fran CBD). Our GPS however was telling porkies, not an Econo Lodge* in sight.

*Econo Lodge - Cheap, clean, comfortable, home away from home style hotel that has been our accommodation mainstay since getting the car.

Back to San Francisco…

We ended up staying at a motel in Belmont for a few days and spent our time round about the main bay area taking in the signs and trying to get a feel for the city. On the first day we parked the car next to one of the peers and took a wander around.

We desperately wanted to get to Alcatraz so we set about getting tickets for that. As expected they were sold out that day but we managed to get tickets for a ferry across the following day!

With the rest of our day we went back to where we’d parked the car and went on a WWII submarine that was docked for display. Pretty cramped conditions down there!

Not a Submarine

A submarine

We decided that night to go out and have a few well deserved pints seeing as we’d been on the road for the last 3 or 4 days solid. After a bit of driving around we found some free parking near a busy Irish bar and started there. After a few beers we got talking to a lady known only to us as Wanda and then the fun began…. She was in “The Business” and lived in LA however was in San Francisco visiting friends. She’d had a few herself and took great pleasure in telling us how cruel life really was down in LA and how lucky we were that we were all young and beautiful… After maybe an hour she insisted we go to the Balboa Café as it was “the hottest bar in Cisco”. Having being in the city barely a day we had no idea where this was so she wanted to share a cab down. This wasn’t really an option as we had the car and stu was the designated driver so she insisted she come along and show us the way.

First night in San Francisco and we’re driving around with a strange women in the front seat who proceeds to blast the radio when “Heroes” by David Bowie comes on. Not only does she turn it up full blast, she opens all the windows and starts belting it out full force…At this point I cant help but hear that parental voice full of wisdom chiming away “Don’t talk to strangers!”.

Mum, Dad…. I get it now.

We got to the bar and to be fair it was actually pretty fun. Reminded me a lot of the bars in the West End of Glasgow. We spent a while in there and as usual the accent attracted some questions. After an hour or so we decided to move further down the street to another place to play some pool. And so beers were drunk, pool was played and hot dogs were eaten as the night became day.

The next day was Alcatraz! Woohoo! After another hazy breakfast we headed down to pier 33 and got on the ferry for the 7 minute ride out to the island.

Theres a lot of History behind Alcatraz from its inception as a military fort to its later use as a federal prison however I’ll leave that for the people who are interested to discover on their own.

We wandered around the various installations on the island for maybe an hour or so and then headed to the main cell block where we took the audio tour. It was narrated by ex guards and cons and gave a really eerie experience of what it would have been like to live/work in there. The graphic descriptions of the various breakout attempts were fantastic also.

The Power Station

The recreational yard

The Isolation Cells

These marks are from grenade explosions. The grenades were dropped from the roof during a siege in which 6 prison officials were killed.

The Kitchen

Freedom!

Inside the recreation yard

I also managed to spill some blood in the island!

After another wander around we headed back to the dock and got the ferry back to the city.

Sea Lions!

We grabbed some dinner and headed to the Golden Gate Bridge. It was pretty windy but we decided to walk across it and managed to time it perfectly to see a massive cargo tanker pass beneath us. We took the car across it later and up to the Marin headlands where we got some okish pictures thanks to the clouds.

Make the call.....

And that’s pretty much what we did in San Francisco! Upon leaving we went up to the Marin headlands again to get some better pictures as the weather was better but from there we headed south to LA for some more Misadventures…..

The Pacific

An unfinished cannon housing they built during the cold war

LA then? In a nutshell - Utter mince.

We stayed in Hollywood itself and took a drive around Beverly Hills and to be honest that’s all we felt like doing. The place felt kinda cheap and tacky as we’d expected but still it was nice to have seen it. On the day we left we headed round to Malibu to check out the beach and while it was a nice beach and a nice area we were still glad to be leaving.

Next was Las Vegas! Im pretty tired though so Im going to finish that story another day. Right now we're in eastern New Mexico having visited the VLA today which was great. Heading to Texas 2moro so hopefully tomorrow night (If I can be bothered) i'll get the rest of our trip so far typed and posted.