Arriving at San Francisco

This morning, after Matt was sucessfully able to get our windshield repaired, we headed out to San Francisco....

The first thing I wanted to do, after checking in at the hotel, was walk to Chinatown. Thankfully both Josh and Matt were more than happy to have this be our first event.

Here is the gate into Chinatown:

As it was already afternoon and we hadn't had lunch, I suggested that we go grab some Korean nosh. So we stepped out of Chinatown, passed some cable cars...

and stopped at a restaurant called 707 Sutter. I had the best bowl of kimchi jjigae I've ever had. It was so spicy! Josh and Matt shared some dumplings, jap chae and some chicken and shrimp skewers.

Then we headed back into Chinatown where we perused some stalls...

There was even laundry being hung out on balconies....

We then decided to head back to the hotel to plan a trip to Alcatraz for first thing tomorrow.... only to find out that the tours sell out at least a week in advance :(
So instead we bought 48 hour passes aboard a hop-on hop-off sightseeing bus company that has 4 routes around the city. We were just in time to catch the last tour for the day that crosses the golden gate bridge..

We had an amazing tour guy, he had us in stitches!!!

For any Star Wars fan readers, this monument was the inspiration for R2D2, it is across from the Lucas Studios. It remains from a world fair that was held here in the early 1900's. I wasn't able to make the monument look like R2D2 from the bus, but you can use your imagination and pretend you're looking at it from a different angle, as Lucas did, up a hill...

As it was the last tour bus of the day we didn't have a chance to hop-on-off, but the driver did stop at each end of the bridge for 5 minutes so that we could take photos....

Josh so near, yet so far from Alcatraz

I took loads of photos of the bridge, but from the wrong side, the lighting was way better taking it from the North, the red comes out. Unfortunately I didn't take many from the North as I thought I already had plenty

From the South:

From the North:

A view of all the tourists and downtown San Francisco from across the bay:

Matt and Josh on the bus:

From the North:

At the end of the 90 minute tour Matt chose a lovely seafood restaurant called Scoma's for us to eat at, right on the waterfront. Here are some of the views the restaurant treated us to....

We shared a smoked salmon plate for an appetizer. I opted for Pasta Dimplomatica (lobster, clams, scallops, prawns and mushrooms in a creamy sauce), Matt had Lobster Thermodore (sp?) and Josh had Scallop and Shrimp alla Gannon (a lemon garlic sauce). Very delicious, but also very expensive! Luckily for us we can save money when we do our next camping part of the trip, ramen and hot dogs it shall be!!!!

We are now back in our hotel room, tired and fed up! ;) There's talk of maybe going to a coffee shop, or if Josh is tired and wanting to stay in the room, Matt and I might go grab a glass of wine from a bistro next to the hotel.

Tomorrow we plan to go on more of the bus tours and use the hop-on hop-off aspect. In the evening we are going to meet up with a Chinese colleague of Matt's, she is going to show us her favourite place for dinner in Chinatown :) I can't wait!!!!

Road Trip

Monday morning Matt, Josh and I set off on our 3 week road trip. We left Las Vegas and headed west towards California.

There are events from my family holidays growing up that have become famous amongst the Hewitt clan. In France when Dad temporarily lost his bearings we ended up in the middle of a vineyard where we had to turn around. A similar situation occurred on Monday, but our turn around occurred in the middle of an orange orchard!

Our first main stop was Kings Canyon National Park. We arrived late afternoon on Monday and checked into our 'rustic' cabin within an area called "Grant Grove Village"

After unpacking it was time to do some exploring around the village:

The next day we ventured further into the national park:

We went to see some Giant Sequoias, they really are HUGE:

The plan was to go on a 7 mile hike, but about 1/4 mile off the beaten track I spotted a black bear. Following all the instructions and advice that is posted everywhere in the park I wanted to go back the way we came and return to a more populated area. Matt and Josh really missed out on a chance to be supportive gentlemen... instead they chose to ridicule and tease me. Not their proudest moment. But I got my way and we did indeed head back. We didn't get to do a large hike but we did get to see some other cool stuff.... we headed to Moro Rock Summit.

After climbing up stairs carved into the rock and passing through narrow passageways we made it to the top!

Here is a view of the rock from another vantage point.

After a busy day exploring we came back to the cabin and made a hearty dinner of baked potatoes (baked in our wood burning stove), baked beans and cheese. This is my favourite camping food!!! Josh said it was the best baked potato he'd ever had. He must  have been hungry!!!

This morning we headed to "Grizzly Falls" to explore a waterfall. I used the chance to experiment with my new camera. The photo on the left is taken using the automatic mode. The photo on the right is manual control playing with shutter speed etc. I was attempting to soften the falling of the water. The photo on the right is overexposed

 This manual one on the right is a lot better, I slowed the shutter speed and adjusted the F-stop so that it wouldn't be overexposed. (I think that's what I did anyway...)

                                                        

 As I was practising, Matt and Josh climbed up beside the waterfall.

 Kings Canyon has some breathtaking scenery, the scale of which I have not seen any place else. I have travelled through the Rockies and the Appalacians which both have impressive scenery, but the size and scope of the Kings Canyon is so much bigger. It's amazing!!! Photos really don't do it any justice whatsoever.
Take this photo from my iphone, this was at a stop along a massive canyon. You really can't get an idea of the size of the place, how deep the canyon was or how far away the mountains in the background are.

For lunch we stopped for a picnic at Hume Lake:

While Josh went for a post-prandial swim, I lay down and enjoyed the view...

Thus ended our time in Kings Canyon National Park. By 1pm we were heading further west towards San Francisco.

We are spending the night in a city called Pleasanton, about 40 miles from San Francisco. We walked around the downtown area looking for some place to eat for dinner. We decided on a place called Stacey's where I chose a chipotle prawn dish served on a bed of mashed potatoes with a corn relish. It was DELICIOUS!!! The chipotle sauce was out of this world.

Matt opted for fettuccine puttanesca while Josh had the crab-crusted halibut. Clean plates all around, so Josh and I were allowed to split a creme brulee.

We're now back at our hotel for the evening. Matt is up early tomorrow to take the Tahoe into a windshield repair place. He spotted a ding in the windshield as we were approaching our hotel.

Our aim is to be in San Francisco for lunch tomorrow. We will be spending 2 nights at Fishermans Wharf. Josh is looking forward to touring Alcatraz, I'm looking forward to touring Starfleet headquarters!

Where's Josh?

Yesterday, in the late afternoon when it it had cooled down and we were experiencing only 94F weather (that's 34.5C to y'all fancy european folk!) we headed to the Nevada state park "Valley of Fire". It's just over an hour drive from where we are situated in Las Vegas, but well worth it! Once you get off the interstate it's pretty cool to drive through the desert.

When we arrived we pulled off at the first parking area and in the back of the truck we ate a picnic of french baguettes filled with spinach, fresh mozarella, tomato, salami and olives. It was yummy!

Then we decided to stay in the area we had parked and explore the 'beehives', rock formations that resemble beehives.

The rocks are really red in comparison to the rocks surrounding the valley. We were there in the evening before the sun went down. As it made its descent behind the mountains in the distance it really made the valley come on fire.

What follows is a game of "Where's Josh?" The ones at the end are rather hard, he's quite the mountain goat. He was rather pleased with himself when he made it up the largest rocky area. I have to admit when he disappeared behind a large rock for a while I was holding my breath for his safe reappearance ;)

Ok, this is where it starts getting tricky!!

Matt was here too!

Ned Flanders from The Simpsons was behind the hill....

As was a baboon..

We will head back to the park soon to explore different sites.