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.