If you are going to San Francisco

Be sure to wear a flower In your hair!

Friday 8th August - This city needs no introduction, you can simply tell by the pictures where you are.

We had a great time there, w e have been to the Academy of Sciences, basically a big planetarium, a ferry ride around the bay, the exploratorium, we rode across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Pleasanton

Saturday 10th August -We are in Pleasanton now with my Aunt, it is a bit rural here so we have had to come to Starbucks to get a wifi connection.  Later we are heading to the farmers market and then heading to Sweet Tomatoes for tea.  Samantha loves it there because it has an eat as much as you like salad bar!

Monterey

Tuesday 6th August - today we are in Monterey, a small fishing harbour about 100 miles south of San Francisco.  It is renowned for having loads of butterflies (we did not see that many) and we came across this house.

We reckon it makes the houses in Pennywell who still have their Christmas lights up in June look like complete ameteurs!

In our last night in Monterey, we ate at Bubba Gumps, the girls thought it would be funny to tell the waiter that it was my birthday (well it nearly was). So after we finished eating the whole staff of the restaurant encircled our table and sang this wacky happy birthday song.  Even I was embarrassed.

Victoria thought it was very funny!

Lobas Point

Monday 5th August - Today we went to Point Lobas state park, it had Ben recommended to us by my aunty, who said it was a very beautiful.  She was right, basically it is a peninsula that sticks out into the sea and it has to be the best place I have been to for photographs.  Everywhere you looked there was an amazing view.  On the beach we saw more seals and sea otters, they were very noisy.  We had a picnic on the beach and the seal became curious and cam quite close to the shore, I think they like Cheetos too!  Here is just one of the many pictures that we took yesterday.

You probably cannot make it out but the island in the middle of this picture has some seals on it!

Whales ahoy!

It is my birthday - 4th August 2013 - Today Samantha, Victoria and I went whale watching in the Bay of Monterey. The picture below shows the boat that we went out on.

We had booked this a few weeks ago back in the UK, we were advised that it would be cold and choppy, which ruled Jules out of the trip.  We arrived at 8:30am ready for our 4 hour trip.  When they said it would be cold and choppy they were correct, although it was a fairly still day there was quite a swell when we got out of the harbour.  We spotted hundreds of birds such as brands cormorants, sooty shearwaters, guilemots also we saw loads of sea otters, and seals.

After about two hours of looking for whales we came across a pair of humpback whales, they we feeding on anchovies.  This meant that they would dive down for about 5 minutes at a time and then come up to breath. There were about 4 boats circling around where these whales were diving, we have some cool photos to show you, also you can't believe how loud they are when they spray the water up, you can hear it from miles away.  On the way back we found a pod of dolphins about 200 strong and got some got photos of these as they came quite near to the boat, see below.

Bishop's Peak on Friday fish and chip day!

Friday 2nd August - today we went for a little hike, we'll it would'nt be a holiday with Dad without a little hike. We headed for a mountain trail near San Luis Opisbo called Bishops Peak.  It is not a massive thing but does give some great views of the town and surrounding mountains. On the way up we saw lots of birds, a rosé finch,some kind of jay and some white tailed eagles, or and a couple of lizards.

As you can se below the view from the top was impressive.

We headed back down the mountain and as we had walked off breakfast and it was Friday we thought we had earned Fish and Chips.  In Pismo beach we found a cafe that was serving fish and chips that looked good so we ate their. Jules made the most of not driving and ordered herself a pint of bud which made me well jealous.

Body boarding

Thursday 1st August - today we went shopping at Pismo shopping outlet, whilst we waited for the sun to burn through the sea mist. Afterwards e walked along the beach towards the centre of Pismo Beach. Samantha and I thought it would be a good idea to try body boarding (surfing without standing up). We bought a pair of body boards on the sea front and headed into the sea. It was cold at first but then we got used to it. We waded out to about waist deep and at he sight of a big wave we turned and faced the shore and jumped onto our boards. It was fantastic, Samantha and I both surfed the wave all of the way to the shore, in fact I grounded much like a beached whale!

It was of course beginners look at it became more difficult after then, but it was great fun.  We are going to try again tomorrow and I will try to get some photos. 

One for Hodge and Elvis

Gettup you two, I remember one of billies famous tales from your world tour, eating frozen yogurt from the shop next door to the cinema in Santa Barbara. We walked past such a set up yesterday so took a photo for you to bring back some memories for you.

Am I in the right spot?

Hodges I did get you some frozen yogurt, but thought it would melt so I ate it!  Sorry marra!

Six flags theme park

Tuesday 30th July - today we went to six flags theme park in Valencia, it was a couple of hours drive away from Santa Barbara. 

We left early in the morning so that we could get there for the gate opening at 10am. The park boasts the biggest, fastest and highest roller coasters in the world.  Even Samantha was petrified on some of them.  Needless to say, I bottled most of them, we'll someone needed to hold the camera.  I did however ride the highest ride in the park and I was not even strapped in.

It was however the parks observation tower, 34 stories high!

The pictures above show the small roller coasters the girls rode on...

Pismo Beach

Wednesday 31st July - today we arrived at Pismo Beach, it is absolutely lovely and one of our favourite places ever.  We upgraded our room so that we could have a sea view, it is well worth it, see the picture below.

Tonight we have been to AJ Spurs steakhouse, it was funky with loads of stuffed animals everywhere and photos of cowboys and Indians. We all had steak and salad and it was a right belly buster as you can see.

Jules and Samantha had a right laugh taking long arm shot photos

There were some big people in the restaurant, one was as big as Daggsy, just look at the size of this bloke!

I have spent most of the afternoon sunbathing and watching pelicans flying past the hotel and fishing in the sea. I will try to get you some action shots of pelicans - my favourite bird.

Santa Barbara

Sunday 28th July - Hi folks, Yesterday, we did the touristy trip around L A looking at all the stars homes, their are some palaces, It is a lot like Witherwack :-) we also went too downtown Hollywood to the Chinese theatre and the walk of fame.  On one of the pictures below you can see the Hollywood sign.

Some silly sod has gone and messed up the concrete paving - bloody yobbo!

We then drove up the coast to Santa Barbara, it looks a lovely place and we are going to explore it today. Our hotel is lovely too, we have gone from having a Ron on the 19th floor in LA to a room on the ground floor overlooking the swimming pool (see below)

At night we headed into town and went along the wooden pier, from the end we could see dolphins jumping in and out of the water. We ate fish and chips and watched the sun go down before evading back to the hotel.

Los Angeles Hotel

Sunday 28th July - We are staying in the Universal Sheraton hotel in LA, we stayed here on our last trip and we had a great view from our window. When we arrived we were allocated a room on the 2nd floor but ask to be moved to a higher floor. The following day we were moved to a room on the 19th floor.  You can see from the pictures below, it was well worth asking to move to a higher floor.

We the girls are almost ready now and we are heading out to The Saddleback Ranch for tea.  Tomorrow we are planning an open top bus tour around the celeb areas of LA before driving up to Sant Barbara.  Blog tomorrow...

In the slash zone!

Saturday 7th July - Absolutely clear blue sky today, which meant that by about 2pm today we were all cooked. There is nothing better for cooling down than by getting wet. The following picture shows the girls in the splash zone from Jurassic Park getting wet.

Samantha is a stick insect

And just to prove it we have taken a picture where you need to spot the difference.

The difference is Samantha is wearing sunglasses!

You are now entering the twilight zone...

Wednesday 24th July - Just after 8am yesterday we did the Tower of Terror, it is bloody awful, but a good laugh at the same time. 

As you can see from this picture, we were petrified!

Universal Studios

Friday 26th July - Hi all, we have been to universal today and have a cracking picture of us all on the mummy ride. This afternoon there was about a million (I am not exagerating) Chinese people arrived at the park and it became very busy, so we headed for the hotel pool. We are heading out tonight to Hard Rock Cafe for some well earned nose bag!

We had a fab meal at Hard Rock Cafe, I thought it might be just a gimmick type restaurant where the food is no good, I could'nt have been more wrong - it was great.  We also drank enough Bud (well Julieann did!) to get glasses to bring home.

Long beach

Thursday 25th July - We had a cool day yesterday at Long Beach, it happened to be that the the World Volleyball championships were taking place at one end of the beach. This gave Samantha and Victoria some good eye candy to observe! The sunburn is starting to take effect, my face is red and I have two white patches where my sunglasses have been. I look a bit like an inverted red and white Panda. We then moved onto LA and we are now in the Sheraton Universal hotel near the Universal Theme Park. It was quite a drive, only about thirty miles but there was at time about 7 lanes of traffic going in each direction and it was very busy. I am driving this huge 4 wheel drive monster, about the size of a transit van and keeping it between the lines is an effort. In about 30 minutes I will be hurtling around underground tunnel in the tomb of a mummy on the Mummy ride. I better go and get some breakfast before I start. 

 Sorted the picture problem out, a few pics from long beach. Can you seethe tankers out in the bay.

The magic of Disney

Tuesday 23rd July - On our first morning, we woke up still in British summer time, about half five! And headed to the disney parks, a short shuttle bus away. The kids were hyper and well before 9am and before Dad was awake enough to know what he was doing we scooted across the empire on space mountain. And yes, Dad did scream like a girl! Ride after ride we did Disney to death on Tuesday, in the park on opening at 8am and we left on the 11:45pm shuttle bus back to the hotel, absolutely knackered - this is supposed to be a holiday? 

 

Here are a couple of pics of us on the buzz lightyear ride

And there off....

And there off.... Sunday 21st July, the cases are packed, the sun tan cream is in the bag, Dad has new sunglasses and the taxi is booked for 3:45am tomorrow. See you on the other side.