Honeymoon - The final act

Wednesday 27th January

Super early start today (I truly am only a morning person when on holiday - Just ask Carl) Up at 5:30 and went down to the Pyramid cafe for breakfast to use up our last $25 voucher. We then checked out and left Vegas by 6:30. I had started driving but with my coughing/cold came a huge headache and I felt quite unwell so we had to pull over so Carl could take over and I napped for a while.

Again we decided to take the long route as we really wanted to travel up the Pacific Coast Highway. So we headed back toward LA and stopped just outside at a Target to stretch our legs, go to the loo and picked up some lunch to eat on the way. I then took over the driving.

Our next stop was in Lompack where we stretched our legs for a little bit and Carl took over the driving for the next 150 miles

Stopping near big sur to watch the sunset and swap again

As the sunset the fog rolled in and I was then driving on some very dark, foggy and windy roads. Once through Salinas we stopped for a McDonalds dinner (we were going to Taco Bell but it was closed, luckily McDs was open next door!).

We finally made it to San Francisco where we checked into the Sheraton Fishermans Wharf at 10pm (remember we left at 6:30?) after a long day of driving we made our way to the best room we had all trip - modern and clean with a very comfortable bed which we virtually fell into and fell asleep almost immediately.

P.S. Carl wanted me to note that 98.7fm in southern California was a good radio station

Thursday 28th January

Up at 7am we were picked up outside the hotel bu Grayline tours at 8:30 and taken to the ticket station at pier 43. We started our city tour and drove around a colourful city

Our first stop was in the mission district where we donated $5 each to visit the oldest building in the city, Mission Dolores, which was completed in 1791 and built by missionaries hoping to convert the city to Catholicism.

Back on the bus we drove to the Tenderloin district where the state buildings are including the birthplace of the UN

Then through Castro, the colourful Gay district (some of these photos might be out of order)

on our way to twin peaks where we stopped for great views, and unfortunately poor photos, of the city.We then drove by a rainbow of houses en route to Golden Gate Park. We stopped at the Japanese Gardens where we are hoping to come back to. From here it was across the Golden Gate Bridge where we stopped at the North Vista for a great view of the city

We were dropped back at pier 43 at 1 and walked to pier 33 (the alcatraz ferry point) and back to the hotel to see how long it would take in the morning. We then walked to Ghiradelli Square where of course we had to have

It had been chilly so we had thought about hot drinks instead but decent ice cream always seems to win with us!

We took a leisurely stroll to pier 39 which is full of boutiques and arcades. It is also home to a lot of sea lions.

We bought some souvenirs then headed back to the hotel. This cold was making me feel really rough - chesty cough, hard to breathe, rattly chest so we just chilled watching some TV hoping this illness didn't ruin the rest of our stay!

Friday 29th January

Do you remember back in the first installment I mentioned we had both arranged a special day for each other? This kind of was Carls day planned for me, although I did do most of it myself and he just paid - story of our lives but it works.

Another early morning - up at 07:30 we had some OJ in the cafe (unfortunately my chest was feeling much worse this morning so I hoped some vit C might help) and left the hotel at 8 to walk to Alcatraz landing. The ferry left at 9 and onboard we shared a ham sandwich and each had a hot drink for breakfast.

It took 15 minutes to get to the island and we were given a quick introduction talk and at 9:30 we took the garden tour. It was very interesting to find out about the military history and the lives of the guards and their families who lived on the island when it housed the prison

This took us all around the island and lasted until 1050 when we headed back to the dock for the 11 o' clock escape talk. We were told in great detail about the few escape attempts and the fewer possible successes. at the end we went into one of the underground tunnels used by Nicholas Cage in the rock.

After this we headed into the cell block for the Audio tour

Would be very creepy but very cool to do this at night my 24 year old self wrote. I am not sure the 34 year old version would be as up for it (seems I have become a wimp :-()

There was one of the old guards in the shop, he had become an author and we bought one of his books on the riots - not because he was there - but when we realised we got is signed. I have absolutely no idea where that book is now I know we leant it to a few people so I am not even sure it's here.

The website advises It can take around 2 hours to visit and walk around Alcatraz... FIVE and a half hours after we arrived we caught the ferry back to the mainland.

We went to Hard rock Cafe for a late lunch

For starter we shared a jumbo combo then he had a BBQ legend burger and I had a legend burger. Mine was delicious but Carl wasn't a fan of his... too much onion.

spoiler alert...Seems this was the start of our Hard Rock addiction. To this day we will visit one for at least drinks in every city we visit. You will see more of these, especially if you are reading these reports in chronological order.

Back to your regular programming...

I was still feeling pretty ill so we went back to the hotel where I had a nap and Carl started reading the book he bought at alcatraz. We went out for an hour or so in the evening but I just didn't have the energy to be interested in anything. We bought some sandwiches from Subway for our trip tomorrow then chilled out in our room watching the longest yard.

Saturday 30th January

up at 6!!! ready to be picked up outside our hotel and taken to the ticket centre at pier 43 to be taken to Yosemite. We stopped at a truck stop around 9 and grabbed some breakfast from Starbucks. It took 5 hours and we arrived at midday. We then had the next 4 hours to explore on our own. We saw Yosemite falls (the tallest waterfall in the USA and the 5th tallest in the world), el capitan and half dome mountains...

I know I know I hear ya - enough words show us!!

Clearly we were impressed with the size of this slab of jerky and just had to photograph it!

Some of those are my favourite photos I have taken and whilst they aren't as high quality as they might be now (better equipment and better user) I still love them. Yosemite was breathtaking and the snow really added to this!

Unfortunately I kept having coughing fits so we couldn't venture too far. We had a hot chocolate (not as nice as the one at the Grand Canyon) bought some souvenirs then back on the bus for 4.

Diligently keeping on top of my notes

About 6:30 we stopped at a truck stop for food and a toilet break, we just shared a Burger king meal. about 60 mins from San Francisco the coach got a flat tyre! We crawled along to the next exit. Pulled up outside a petrol station and waited for a mechanic. The driver had a DVD of the knowing which w watched all the way through (according to IMDB this film is 2hrs long). We were dropped back at our hotel at 11:05 - 2 hrs later than planned but the film helped pass the time. We fell into bed we were so tired!!

P.S Carl finished his Alcatraz book today and just wanted you to know!

Sunday 31st January

Up at 8:30 and walked to Hyde street to pick up the Tandem we had hired from Blazing saddles. We were a little wobbly at first but soon picked it up. My chest infection thing stopped me from cycling uphill so Carl took the bike on his own whilst I slowly walked up, luckily there was only 1.

We stopped about halfway across the Golden gate bridge to watch some Dolphins swimming underneath. We then carried onto Saualito. 8 miles cycles in total and we took our time stopping regularly to take in the views arriving around lunchtime.

We walked though the beautiful seaside town on a sunny Sunday afternoon, the way all Sundays should be!!. We stopped for lunch at Winships restaurant (I found out recently this is now a burger place!) Where I had a deluxe fish and chips and Carl had Italian Sausage, chicken and pasta in a tomato sauce. We caught the 2:50 ferry back to pier 39

We dropped the bike back and returned to the hotel to chill for a bit. We watched a documentary called the top 100 places to eat in the USA - it was definitely a case of quantity over quality!

Around 5 we went back out and walked up hyde street, which was ridiculously steep, to the top of crookedest street

We got a subway dinner and some huge drinks from 7-11

less than $2 each

which we had back in our room. Around 8 we went back out and did some souvenir shopping and stopped and Ghiradellis for a hot chocolate, the plan had been to have a sundae there then the 'famous' Irish coffee from Buena Vista but my cough was playing up too much. Also developed some photos (with the exchange rate it's much cheaper for us to do in the US than back home! ).

Back in the room about 10:30 and started to pack. No idea how we will get everything home. Asleep by midnight.

Monday 1st February

The final section. Luckily this holiday didn't feel like it had gone too quickly and we managed to fit a lot into our 2 weeks , Up at 9ish, finished packing and checked out around 11 and paid $215 for parking for 5 nights - here's the thing. You don't really need a car in San Francisco, we didn't use it once after we arrived, and hotels charge a lot for parking. Had we known we would have asked to stop the car hire and drop it off on arrival to save ourselves $$$s. We know for next time!

We drove a round for a little while to use up the remaining petrol arriving at the airport about 1:30. When we dropped off the car we had covered 1369.3 miles so it wasn't bad at all that we only spent $80.00 on fuel!! SFO is a smaller airport than Sandford in Florida which surprised us. We got pizza for lunch and bought some duty free. Boarded the plane at 4 and flight home just under 10 hrs.

We were both so glad we chose this for our honeymoon! It's a different type of holiday from what we are used to and we managed to fit in loads and still found time to relax. We had a lot of fun and the Ice Hockey definitely won me some brownie points. We will do this trip again sometime but I think next time we will start in San Francisco and pick up the car when we're ready to leave. I felt we missed out on some stuff in SF due to my being ill so we definitely want to head back sometime.

The final line of my notes was "Would be nice to do this with mum, dad, Luke and Sam at some point as I think they would really love it. Sadly 9 yrs later that still hasn't happened...YET.

Carls final thoughts...