My birthday, June 14th was great. We spent the day exploring more of San Francisco and in the evening we met up with Angeline Tan, a Singaporean (not Chinese as previously thought) colleague of Matts.
She took us on San Francisco public transport into the heart of China town to a Chinese restaurant where we literally ordered a set 'feast' of 7 dishes for just the 4 of us. So a lot of food and a lot of chinese beer was consumed. However, it was the cheapest meal we had in the city by $50!!!
Here is Matt with the head of a chicken...
After dinner Angeline took us to an Italian pastry shop for 'birthday cake' and espresso.
We then, at 11pm, took a bus into the financial district to then take a cable car back to hotel.
The next day we said goodbye to San Francisco and headed up the coast to Manchester Beach state park.... where it is FREAKING COLD!!!!!!!!! The weather in this area of the states reminds me of autumn back home in England/Ireland. I had thought that it would be more like summer back home, so I packed t-shirts, cardigans, capris and socks..... which apparently is not enough. I have had to buy a pair of jeans, a hoodie, a rain jacket and camo pants.
Between San Francisco and Seattle we have 6 nights of camping. We are doing it in 2 night stints at different KOAs up the coast. KOA stands for Kampgrounds Of America. We rent a basic cabin which contains only beds and mattresses. It is, however, always clean and safe. Each location is slightly different. The location in Manchester Beach had a heated pool and hot tub. The location we are in at the moment has no pool, but has free wifi in a churchhall-style rec center that is open 24/7.
Here is our Cabin in Manchester Beach
KOA kampgrounds allow tent camping, RV camping and offer differing levels of Kabins. There are often social events like ice cream socials, out door movies, local bands playing and pancake breakfasts.
There are always laundry facilities and clean bathrooms and showers. Luckily for us they also have small stores that sell warm clothing!!!!
On our first night the Kabin next to us was occupied by a group of Koreans. They had a huge box of Soju that they drank at night, a great idea in the damp coldness of the Northern Californian coast. I might pick some up in Seattle for our final leg of camping!
In Manchester Beach we were right next to the beach and so we ventured down there. Apparently it was rather cold....
The Barcomb boys fear nothing! (except cold ocean)
Beautiful cliffs in the Manchester Beach area...
Our current KOA is right next to the Redwood National Park as well as the Pacific shoreline, so today we explored both. Here are a few photos of our adventures... I left my camera at the Kabin, so these were all snapped with my iphone.
Tomorrow we leave California and make our way into Oregon where we will spend 2 nights before entering Washington on our way to Seattle.
No idea if there will be wifi/cell phone service at our next stop, so I might have to do another catch up when we arrive in Seattle (where I am hoping we can have some Korean, I'm having Kimchi withdrawal)
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