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Poppet* guided us to the airport, where there’s expensive burgers ($9.95, good though) and beer ($6, SNPA, very good).

There’s also 45 minutes free internet.

Spent yesterday touring the town, L Caravelle to Chinatown, walked down to the waterfront, had lunch, took photographs of Alcatraz and the sea lions, bought huge surprisingly nice strawberries with chocolate sauce for dipping, went to the Musee Mecanique which has gorgeous gorgeous player pianos, including a Wurlitzer I sooo WANT, stood in a one hour queue to get on the cable car back to Market street, and took the L Caravelle back home.

Drove into town early this morning, Poppet took us past the Golden Gate bridge, but we were in a hurry. Eventually found some parking, went back to Chinatown to find a handbag Jessica saw yesterday, and a bloody huge bag to stuff four sleeping bags and three pillows into.

Back to the bridge for photos, after eventually finding a parking spot. Then took the scenic route to the airport, where we had to spend $75 to get our three x luggage on the plane. Ah well.

Forgot to stick my swiss army knife in the check-in, so gave that to the baggage handler before security (rather him than TSA, I figure).

* The Hertz GPS navigator girlie, otherwise known as “I do what the voices in my dashboard tell me”.

Yesterday we drove up from Los Angeles via the Big Sur. Gorgeous, stunning, indescribably wonderful views… hidden by a thick mist. They tell me I should come back in winter.

Nepenthe is high enough so that we could sit and drink a beer while enjoying the view of the cloud bank from above. (Excellent) beer at $8, (OK) wine at $12/glass. Didn’t stay for seconds.

Big Sur Campground is excellent. Recommended for a longer stay. We were in campsite #6, right next to the river, but if you do get the choice I’ go for site #8.

Went back to the Big Sur Bakery for supper and, as others have said, it’s good but pricey.

Struck camp this morning, got breakfast burritos at the Big Sur Deli, and continued to enjoy the mist-shrouded scenery.

The Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town is excellent, so it’s always a toss-up on whether any given aquarium is worth visiting (i.e. better than Two Oceans). The Monterey aquarium qualifies. It’s neatly build into what used to be the canning factory, and they are really capitalising on the whole John Steinbeck thing. It works, and they have sea otters. Neat. (We also said “hoezit” to the expat penguins, they just stood around looking bored).

It’s a long road so we were late (I’d aimed to get there at their 14:00 opening time) at the Pacific Pinball Museum, W000t. Lots of machines all set to “free”. Didn’t enjoy Electra as much as I’d wanted to, but I think Fireball (the first one) is a lot of fun. The Stern Orbitor 1 is amazing. Realised, once again, how much I like the old EM games. Pity they don’t have a Top Score, would love to see how a good one plays.

So then we headed up to Casa Loma Hotel, which we booked online via booking.com, only to find the place boarded up. Fsck. I’d been worried about this because they didn’t reply to an email last week and I’d only been able to reach an answering machine on their phone number… not find the place. It’s right next to a boarded up shop, and since they had not replied to my emails nor answered my phone calls, we assumed that they were in fact bust*.

Anyway, there are not that many problems that can’t be solved by applying the universal spanner, being… money. Found a parking spot (difficult), grabbed the Rough Guide, and started phoning (did I tell you that I bought a $9.99 cellphone at Best Buy?). Found a place on the other side of town (it’s right next to the zoo) at twice the price, but it’s beautiful in a fifties Art Deco meets Japan way and the WiFi is fast and free and there’s a Deli around the corner sells sarmies for supper and all kinds of beer so all is not too bad. Of course I had to extend the rental car by two days, which is not a bad thing ‘cos we can then drive to SFO instead of humping suitcases on a train… life is sooo easy if you fling gobs of cash at it.

Anchor Brewing Liberty Ale: excellent.

Anchor Steam Beer: Not bad at all, but I won’t take seconds.

Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Torpedo IPA: TBD Not bad at all.

Mad River Brewing Co. Steelhead Extra Pale Ale: Foamy light mouthfeel. Maybe a good breakfast drink, but I’ll pass.

Anchor Porter: TBD Bloody good.

* And of course, with us being a no-show, I now hafta pay them $110 cancellation fee.

So guess who woke whom up *this* morning.

Bought a Samuel Adams variety pack and a sixpack Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, as well as a couple of bottles of Cali Sauvignon and a bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon and some red and sampled and sampled and sampled…

Air is incredibly dry, my sinuses are complaining.

Of course now our hosts want to feed us again.

Get all sunburnt and footsore at four in the afternoon. ‘cmon, the museums are open ’till five!

Balboa Park zoo is magnificent. Definitely worth it.

The Natural Sciences Museum is well thought out, well laid out, damn interesting, but IMO not that interesting. Kids enjoyed it, so hey.

Aerospace Museum is, like last time, great. This time they also have one of the Apollo crew capsules on display. Three people went to the moon and back in that thing. Dayumn. The rest of the NASA display is not worth the surcharge, I don’t think.

I was still game for a visit to the automotive museum, but the wuss-esses they were not. Headed to the car via the carousel which is fluppin gorgeous.

Hit the corner store for beer and bubbly. The beer is good :-)

0600 and I couldn’t sleep any longer. Got the hairy eyeball from Tanya. Hey, it’s a new day filled with boundless possibilities!

Mission Valley Resort is great. Sure, it’s a bit run down and we have at least one blown light bulb and one mains outlet that’s not working, but there’s also a pretty good diner, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on tap, a store that sells everything including bubbly, wine and beer, a swimming pool, and free internet. A bargain at the price, recommended.

Landed in San Diego right on time. Found the Hertz shuttle, found that they had assigned an Eclipse Spyder. Cute car for two people with one set of clean underwear between them, but it’ll never take four people comfortably.

Asked about the Mustang (seeing how I phoned from SA, making sure they knew that’s my preference, they said our luggage would never fit (one not too big suitcase, four carry-ons). I figured it would, but also realised I still have to pick up two tents and a bunch of other stuph from Phillip. Settled on the Sebring. Which comes with satnav. At $12.99 a day. But the nice lady in the dashboard helped me find the hotel so we’re friends now.

Had fun driving an automatic on the wrong side of the road at night after 27 hours in the air. Fortunately the other people on the road are good at avoiding collisions…

Had supper at the diner, a Reuben and SNPA for me, toasted cheese and fish and chips for Tanya, Tamsyn and Jessica. Slowly training Tanya to drink Cali chardonnay.

Tanya worked out she’d been without sleep for around 48 hours, so we hit the bed, hard.

So right now it’s around four in the afternoon back home, seven in the morning here, and we’re off to Balboa park.