Hey guys

Made it to Crescent City around 8 pm (Monday 18-6-2012) hit Rays super store got some tea (steak chicken salad) the town it self was not much so we went back to the RV Park.

We got up  (Tuesday 18-6-2012) around 7pm and hit the 101 HWY South with a few new CD’S burnt. (Johnny cash Fleetwood Mac etc) We drove through the Red Wood National Park on our way down. Its absolutely awesome, you hurt your neck just looking up at them. We stopped at correctly named Big Tree height 92.6 meters in diameter, 6.6m circumference, 20.7m and its age is 1500 yrs old (the photos don’t do it justice) We walked a few trails around the area but didn’t go to far as there has been a lot of bigfoot sightings around the area. As we left the Park we got a FLAT on the back!!  With no phone service, we got lucky enough to stop out the front of the only house on the whole HWY and right as we pulled up the owner (Rich) was just pulling out. He asked if we needed a hand and offered to use his phone (we a not allowed to change the tyre our selves). Rich lives on an old Lumber Yard (just North of Orick CA) that he used to work in and when the Yard closed around 25 years ago he bought the Yard and built his house on it. Beautiful property with a big wooden house with two creeks running through the property and about 20 free roaming chickens, 4 peacocks and many more different animals (what a place to break down). About an hour later a tow truck guy pulled up and changed the wheel and then we had to head to Eureka CA to get a new tyre. 5 hours later we were back on the 101 HWY (running way behind on time). We hit a little store on the high way called the Legend Of Bigfoot (same one out of the movie Harry and the Hendersons ) . We stopped and grabbed some photos and some vials of Bigfoot hair (no joke they had it) after that we made a decision to take HWY 1 instead of the 101. HWY 1 runs right a long the shoreline. The scenery was beautiful and the old Americano towns were cool but the road was not built for a 9.5 m long and 4 m wide RV, it slowed us down real bad (it was like the Macquarie pass road for about 6 hours long, nuts) We had to stop at a little town called Albion (posh town) it was about 8.45pm when we turned up at this little restaurant car park. We parked our tank of a RV next to BMW convertible and on the other side a new Merc (and they were the worst cars in the parking lot) Sam in his rainbow board shorts and tee, thongs, Sarah in short shorts brown dogg jumper that has not been washed all trip, my self not far off what Sam was wearing and Jen the best dressed out of the lot of us, jeans, shoes, combed hair and nice top. We walked down into the restaurant and we asked if we could grab a table. The girl checked with the chef and she said we could only order entrée and dessert. That was cool with us. With everybody starving we sat down and ordered the best seafood chowder we have ever had, dessert apple and rhubarb pie, cheesecake and crème brulee (what a day we had). We chowed that down amongst our fellow dinners (mostly in tweed suits and swirling their wine glasses).

Next day (19-6-2012) we made our way for San Fran. What we thought was a 3 hour drive was actually 6 hours and a 20 mile winding road that you would not go on in much more then a mini. We made it to San Francisco and over the Golden Gate Bridge and found our RV park which had no hook up sites left so we paid $90 for a car park spot. We caught a taxi to pier 39 Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s a real cool place over looking Alcatraz. As we turned up one of the old wharfs was on fire and firemen running around everywhere, the girls were in heaven. We went down to get tickets to Alcatraz where there was a sign saying that it was booked out until the 28^th of June, over a week away but every morning they pre sale only 25 tickets at 8am.

A bit down on our hopes of getting tickets we went to Bubba Gump shrimp restaurant for tea to cheer us up  (for those who don’t know it….. it’s out of the movie Forest Gump) it was AWESOME  great food and décor.  The next day we got up around 6am and drove into the city, about 15 mins away with no traffic we parked the beast and got in to the line up around 6.40am with already 28 people in front of us (what most people didn’t read was that your whole party needed to be here to buy the tickets) they opened the doors early around 7.30am and to our luck we jumped a few people and got tickets F-ING STOCKED (after the last two days we had, about time we had some good luck)

We jumped onto the ferry about 9.10am, first one for the day. It’s real eerie when you dock at Alcatraz knowing some of the History of the walkways and buildings. Alcatraz was a fort in 1847 and after that a military jail in the Civil War 1861 before a penitentiary in 1932 which closed 1963  then in 1969 a group of Native American Indians held the island for 19 months in a push for the government to give back Native Lands back to the people. 1972 Alcatraz be come a part of the Golden Gate National Parks (just a quick some up for you). We went in to the cellblock were they hand your audio tour to you and begin. The audio tour is unreal so well set out telling you were to go, turn, sit and look, the voice is of an inmate John Banner, put away for bank robbery 1954 to 1958 narrates most of the tour. It’s just one of those places that you have to see your self  (like a lot of things over here).

We then hit the HWY 1 again heading form Santa Cruz home of the surfing spot Steamer Line and Jack O’Neil the founder of O’Neal Wet Suits (and Sam and I have not got boards yet)  about 4 hours later we hit Santa Cruz, (still no surf.)  It has a massive carnival right along the shore line witch is real cool, we checked out a few shops, had some deep fried Oreos and Twinkies! Yum! We then went on the hunt for our RV Park that we looked up on the net. When we found the park it was nothing like the ad showed we did our 28 point turn (in the NON RV friendly road) and got the hell out of there. We ended up finding a real nice one just out of town just north of Monterey. The next morning we made our way for Monterey, which is a real nice little old fishing town with a massive sardine factory on the out side of down town.