Month: December 2014

1.5 hours to get there. 20 minutes to take photos. Major holiday weekend here. Priceless!

Sausalito is to San Francisco as Fremantle is to Perth, only more expensive.

After the Muir Woods we spent an hour or so grabbing lunch and a walk through this lovely bay-side town opposite the big city across the Bay.

A short coach ride up in to the Muir Woods National Park and a 1 hour wander through the tall trees.

Fabulous…

We landed from the tortuous 15 hour flight and arrived at the Holiday Inn in Fisherman’s Warf mid-morning.

The room was a little cramped with a foldout bed, but it’s only for sleeping so no problems there really.

We quickly headed down to Fisherman’s Warf where we experienced a truly magic day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky although it was a little on the cool side. Nothing to worry about given we expected to do a fair bit of walking after the flight.

Our first priority was to get some pre-paid SIMs for our phones… Not so much for phone calls, but mainly for access to maps and Google. This proved a little difficult for some reason as most had sold out – perhaps it was the silly season.

On the way we saw the colony of sea lions that have taken up residence in the marina:

We shared a “large” pizza from Luigi’s Pizzeria – quite possibly the best we’ve ever had. This reminded us of the portion sizes we’re likely to face in the US and that we should be careful.

We then took a ferry tour of the Bay that took us to the Golden Gate and around Alcatraz. Unfortunately, we didn’t realise the need to book ahead for the tour of the island, so seeing it from the water was the best we could achieve – it gives us a reason to come again.

It was cool before – it was freezing on the water.

We then jumped in a taxi and headed to a shopping mall to get the SIMs. We soon had that “connected” feeling again .

It didn’t take long before I was being dragged aroud the mall looking at various clothing stores. Hardly surprising really… I should have known better than to get within a 5-mile radius of one with both Ellie & Grace.

We approached a Victoria’s Secret shop and was I promptly requested to wait outside. Grace needed some new under-things. Several things crossed my mind at this point:

• Why did we travel for 24 hours to get some stuff she could have bought at Target for half the price?
• Why was my 16 year old daughter shopping here? This isn’t underwear – it’s lingerie!
• Why didn’t they want me in the store? Was it my habit of hovering impatiently? Or perhaps they didn’t want me oggling?

I’ve learnt not to think too much about this stuff.

We grabbed a quick bite to eat at the mall then headed back to the hotel where we crashed.

This is our rough itinerary…

• Perth
• San Francisco
• Los Angeles
• Las Vegas
• Washington DC
• New York
• Orlando
• Perth

And the blogs – click on menu item “USA 2014/15” above… enjoy!

I had a crown put in at the end of last week – close to the nerve. I expected a bit of sensitvity, but it’s getting worse. I have no chance to get it fixed before holidays, so I’ll be popping Ibuprofen like Tic-Tacs.

Then, when I return, I anticipate a B&D session that will include a little root-canal.