One last shot of the Golden Gate Bridge to add to the collection of photos of the Cadillac in front of famous stuff..



From one of the biggest bridges in the world, it was off to the street that claims to be "the crookedest street" in America, Lombard Street. Some of the priciest real estate in San Francisco is on and around Lombard street.



A few people (mostly my family) had told me that you couldn't drive a 6 metre long vehicle down Lombard street without scraping the sides, so of course that meant we had to try. (For the record, we made it down easily, I only hit reverse once, and k8 was adamant I didn't even need to do that)



We did a little more driving around, and made our way to Haight-Ashbury, even if you don't smoke, you should still check out the smoke shops here, I don't think you'll find a better collection of 'herb jars' and pipes outside Amsterdam.



There's even a shop themed after The Goonies.



And of course, when I saw this Airstream parked on the side of the road by the Golden Gate National Park, I just had to grab a photo.



If anyone ever dares you to drink this stuff, don't. Clamato beer is beer flavoured with clams and tomato, and I'm sure it was a good idea at the time, but I definately don't recommend it.

They even have cops on horses here.... (ok, so we have them at home too, but considering we're getting rid of bike cops cos they cost too much, the horses can't be far behind). Something else we noticed about cops in California, is that every roadworks site we saw, had at least 1 cop in attendance while the work crews were there, smaller sites would have a cop directing traffic, while the roadworks on the Interstates had a CHP car with it's lights flashing to warn people to slow down.



mmmmm.... alcohol.... This is just a small selection of the liquor department at the local supermarket in San Jose, not a dedicated bottle shop, just in the supermarket, next to the fresh fruit section actually... The prices over there are really good too, we drank Corona's that cost about US$20 a carton and the bottle of Woodford Reserve bourbon a few posts above cost US$29, the same bottle in Perth goes for AU$75



Just another old sign, the car wash was still there, and still in use, but you enter from the other side of the block, nowhere near this sign.

You can't go to San Francisco without visiting Alcatraz.



Alcatraz is a national park, and you don't pay for entry, as such, but there's only one company that's allowed to land ferries at the dock on Alcatraz, and they charge around $50 per person for a return trip. From memory, they send ferries to and from the island about 4 times a day, plus a night trip that heads over at 6pm and returns at 9pm. Your ticket doesn't tie you to a return time, unless you're on the night ferry. We opted to head across on the 10:30am ferry, which boards at 10am. Apparently having a valid ticket doesn't mean you'll get on the ferry either, if you're stuck in the queue when the gates close, too bad. The island is insanely popular, and the queues are very long, so it's a good idea to be in the line at least 10 minutes before they start boarding. We left San Jose via the I280 nice and early, and ducked across to the US101 along the way. The scenery along the I280 is pretty cool, and although it's a longer route to San Francisco, there's usually less traffic. Unfortunately, not long after we left, the Caddy decided to pop the lower radiator hose off it's fitting. Luckily for us, after assessing the situation in the middle of the Interstate with traffic flying past at 75 miles an hour, we were able to make it to the next off-ramp and found a servo about half a mile away. This was one of the few servo's we found that doesn't charge for air and water, and on closer inspection, it turned out that the hose, clamp and radiator were all fine, and with a borrowed screwdriver, I was able to refit the hose and tighten the clamp. Several litres of coolant and a tank of gas later, and we were back on the road. We probably lost about 40 minutes all up, and still managed to pull in to a carpark on The Embarcadaro at about quarter to 10.



When Alcatraz ceased to be used as a Federal prison, it was briefly occupied by local Amercian Indians (the basis was a claim that an 1868 treaty agreed to release all 'retired, abandoned or out of use federal land' to the Indians. About a year after the prison was closed, the government declared it 'surplus federal property', which by the terms of the above treaty, would have returned it to the Indians.). The first occupation lasted about a day, and another one in 1969 lasted about a year.



Before Alcatraz was a Federal Penitentiary, it was a military base. These cannons pointed out into the bay to protect the city of San Francisco from water based attacks during the US Civil War. While the island was being used as a military base, it was decided to build a prison on the island for military prisoners. In the 1930's, the military prison was upgraded to the federal penitentiary everyone knows from the movies.



If you've seen 'So I Married An Axe Murderer", then you probably remember Phil Hartman's role as "Vicky" the Alcatraz tour guide, if you haven't, the following link will take you to a youtube clip of the scene.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmFVeeLL01c



In solitary at Alcatraz. These cells were the second worst cells you could be in on Alcatraz, if you misbehave here, you go into 'the hole' - cells similar to these, only with another door in front to exclude all light.



"The hole" - if you end up in here, you've done something _really_ bad. No one got sent straight to Alcatraz, you had to stuff up at another federal maximum security prison to get yourself a ticket here, to end up in solitary, only the worst of the worst would end up in these cells.

A 'typical' Alcatraz cell. Note the crochet hooks and wool in the foreground, crocheting was a fairly popular way for the hardened criminals residing in Alcatraz to pass the time.



Painting was another popular pastime on 'The Rock'.



Some of the rules for those inmates who were lucky enough to get visitors at Alcatraz. Those who were lucky enough to have visitation privileges and someone on the outside who wanted to visit them, were still separated by a wall and a sheet of glass, and had to abide by the rules above.



While Alcatraz is famous for it's isolation, it's also so close to San Francisco that it's said you can hear the city having fun on a Friday night, adding to the torment for a prisoner on the island.

This Coke fridge is in the admin office at Alcatraz, I just wanted to bring it home with me.



This is the control room at Alcatraz.



And another control room pic, I'm not sure just what can and can't be controlled from here, while the cell doors at Alcatraz were able to be opened and closed remotely for at least some of it's life, there were still plenty of keys (and manual locks) in use on the island.



The view from the excercise yard at Alcatraz. Those steps are pretty steep, and it's not the friendliest environment, with the cold breeze blowing across the bay.



Last photo from Alcatraz... One of these things is not like the other....

After catching the ferry back from Alcatraz, we walked up to a place called Lou's at Fisherman's Wharf and had lunch, checked out a few shops and caught a cable car to the cable car museum. This is the cable car we caught, and it's apparently the newest one they have, being only about 6 months old.



A cable car is controlled by a couple of levers and a large pedal, that between them control the brakes and a clamp that grabs the cable. As you head down the steep hills in SF, it's not unusual to smell burning brake material as the driver tries to control the speed of the car.



The cable cars only stop in the middle of intersections, as that's where the roads are flat. This is the view from the cable car stop at the top of Lombard Street.



The cable's clamp grabs a cable under the road, which means there needs to be a slot in the road the full length of the line. You can see the slot in this photo.



At the cable car museum, you can see the large motors that winch the cables, and the large spindles below that send it out in the correct directions.

San Francisco's public transport system includes the famous Cable Cars, Electric Trolleys (Trams), Electric Buses and Diesel powered buses (currently being replaced with Diesel Electric hybrids), thankfully the stuff that looks cool is all electric or cable powered, and safe from the greenies



The Fisherman's Wharf area is full of people trying to make a buck on the street. Some paint, some dress up and clown around, this guy hides behind a couple of leafy branches and jumps out at people, startling them. Whenever we walked past, he had a crowd of people watching his antics and every now and then someone would throw some coins in his tin.



San Francisco fire truck, just cos it's cool and a little different to the ones in Perth.



Commodores don't do that much for me at home, but there's a certain sense of national pride that comes from seeing an Australian built car on the streets of America. Mind you, we only saw a couple of these Pontiac G8's while we were there. (And now that Pontiac is no more, these might be the last Commodores in the US)



Crikey! The wax museum on Fisherman's Wharf was a bit of a disappointment, but at least we didn't pay full price.

After San Francisco, we only had a couple of days left in the US. and still had a heap of things we wanted to do. So, the following day, we headed down to Monterey and the 17 Mile Drive, which is a scenic drive through Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach. Pebble Beach is a gated community housing several golf courses, including the one it's named after.



This is at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey's version of AQWA/Underwater World. This is a perspex tunnel under a wave pool, so you can see the effect of the crashing waves on the things that live in tidal areas.



A large part of the Monterey Bay Aquarium is their Sea Otter program, they care for and release injured sea otters, as well as having some on display. (They had a large Otter exhibit, including freshwater and sea otters from around the world, but this closed about a week after we came home, and the Otter portion is now limited to 5 local Sea Otters)



On the 17 Mile Drive at Pebble Beach. This is a really nice drive, and well worth the US$9.25 entry fee. For your fee, you also get a guide book listing all the major scenic attractions, and they're all numbered on the road for you as well.



This is the "Lone Cyprus" at Pebble Beach. The Pebble Beach Company (who own the land the community is built on) claim intellectual property rights over all images of this tree. There's a bit of conjecture about whether they can actually do this, but their main restriction is that they don't want anyone to sell images of this tree without their permission, which I can live with. (If you look closely, you can see braces between the branches of the tree, this is not that uncommon a sight in the US)



Some of the squirrels are really tame, especially where they see lots of tourists. The ones at Alum Rock Park would run away whenever you tried to get in close for a shot, but this one at Pebble Beach stayed nice and still, not matter how close you got. Apparently they're disease ridden, so it's not a good idea to actually handle them, but taking photos is ok.



Another shot of the Caddy, just cos I can. The Oakley sticker on the left rear confused at least one American tourist, who stood behind it at the Golden Gate bridge, looked at it long and hard and proclaimed 'It must be an Australian car'. He was actually the second person to decide it was an Australian car, an American lady came up to us in San Jose, started talking to us and after asking us where we were from said "and did you bring your car with you, cos I've never seen one of them here"



Sunset at Pebble Beach, being on the west coast, Californian's have the same awesome sunsets we get here in Western Australia.

On our last night in the US, we went to dinner and a movie at the Great Mall of San Jose. I must admit to being a little surprised at their pricing, it was about 50c more to see a movie after certain times and on certain days, which begs the question, if it's only 50c more, why not just set one price?



This is Mark's Hot Dogs in San Jose, they're a good, cheap hot dog. You'd never call this a 5 star establishment, but I'd have no hesitation in going back for another one. The hut was originally an orange juice stand, which was then taken over by Marks, and then moved to the current location a few years ago. Mark's Hot Dogs is also one of the few places that still has a car-hop service (although it's not the schoolgirls in rollerskates you're used to from the movies).



And this is the menu at Mark's, it's also the last photo I've uploaded from the US. after we had lunch, we rushed back to my brothers place to finish packing and head off to the airport.

When we got to San Jose airport, we found that although we had 2 new suitcases, we were still overweight on all our luggage, so we had to unpack, turf some stuff, get my brother to come back and take some of our stuff to his place, repack and get on the plane. We ended up making it through checking with about 5 minutes to spare, but once we got through that point, everything was breezy for the rest of the trip home.



This plane hangs in the international departure lounge at Auckland Airport, apparently it used to be flown by Jean Batten, New Zealands answer to Amelia Earhart. This plane has flown from England to Brazil, England to New Zealand and Australia to England.



And this is the last shot I have from the trip. I'm not 100% sure this is the plane we flew from Los Angeles to Auckland in, but it was one of only a couple of 747-400's at Auckland Airport while we were there, and I'm pretty sure it's parked at the gate we disembarked at in this shot.

If you've enjoyed these shots, you can see more of them at a couple of locations.

This is a link to the flickr set of the photos, these are just set in chronological order.

This link takes you to the section on HighOctanePhotos.com devoted to the trip, and is sorted by towns and attractions.

We have left the Cadillac in San Jose, and are planning a return trip next year, and it would be good to get a couple of other people to come along for a road trip.

Time for one more (probably the last) update on this trip. We've now booked tickets for a return journey in August this year. We're leaving Perth on the 31st of July and won't be back until the 6th of September. While we're in the States, we're planning a road trip starting in San Jose and taking in Southern California, Nevada and Utah. One of the highlights of the trip, and the reason we decided to make it happen, is a visit to the Bonneville Salt Flats for SpeedWeek 2010, and because of this, we're calling this trip "The Bonneville Run".

More details will be in another thread that I'll post up soon.