Bloodbath at the House of Mouse

Timelines are easily distorted, more so when you’re away.

When you’re in the routine of normal working life, one day is broadly pretty much like another – the days have a tendency to roll together, specifics become less distinct, and whether you did something a week or a month ago largely becomes an irrelevancy.

When you’re travelling however, the same rules no longer apply, primarily because of the sheer volume of stuff we attempt to pack in, in our desperate hopes to see and experience as much as possible. Life is more dynamic and the hours more dense with activity. Something from a few days ago feels like it happened a couple of weeks ago, and things done a month ago might as well have happened last year. It’s routine to ask yourself ‘when did this happen?’, only to find yourself mentally mouth-agape upon realizing it was only late last week, not late last summer. My theory is that it’s probably your brain protecting you from going completely off the rails trying to make sense and order of everything.

About the only two things that bring such confusion to an end is when you get home (when, finally, everything seems so long ago), and when you close the loop – when you go back to where you started, see things that you subconsciously saw but didn’t register before, and realize that the trip wasn’t that long after all, and it’s depressing as all hell now it’s nearly over.

Still, there was little time to reminisce. We needed to ready our weapons, steel our souls, and march bravely and without hesitation into the face of California, the face of capitalism – indeed, arguably the face of the USA.

We were to head to Disneyland.

From the exact timing of shows and events, to their eerily prescient calculation of wait times in queues, they show the rest of the world how to get its shit together. Whether you’re an avid fan of the House of Mouse, or you just have a passing familiarity, no-one can argue that they don’t know how to run a gig.

Their brutal, ruthless, relentless efficiency – the sort of efficiency you’d hope the CIA or FBI possess, but know is just a myth; the sort of efficiency even McDonalds fantasize about, green-eyed with envy - is coupled with an almost unearthly ability to extract money from your pocket at every point in your journey through the Happiest Place On Earth™, yet leave you somehow unfazed the entire time.

We arrived at a Disney character themed car-park and before you could say “Jiminy Cricket – I’ve been robbed!” we’d handed over $15 for parking, $614 for a two day Park Hopper pass for a family of four, and had boarded a magical mystery bus bound for Disneyland, a mile distant.

The shuttle service, like everything at Disneyland, gives new meaning to the old cliché ‘well-oiled’ – buses are numbered and run in a constant stream meaning there’s little, if any, wait at any time of the day - signboards telling you which bus goes to which park are everywhere, and even your parking ticket gives you a reminder. The intent is that you’ll switch your brain to neutral, keep your hand heading for your wallet, and just enjoy.

And, I’m not too proud to admit, that’s exactly what we did, taking in just about every ride at least once, sometimes twice, over the course of a two day assault the likes of which Disney has probably only rarely experienced – 8:30am to 10:30pm Saturday, and 9:00am until 4:30 (when we had to finally leave to catch our return flight) on Sunday. 

Although to my eyes Disneyland seemed flat-chat, it was actually a pretty quiet Saturday in Anaheim. Of course, that didn’t stop there being lines for almost everything, from rides to meeting characters – I stood in line for an hour so Elise could meet Minnie. Still, things moved, albeit slowly, and you could always get to food or drink of, surprisingly, a reasonable standard when needed. One guy in the “Minnie Line” told me the worst he’d seen Disneyland was, amazingly, Super Bowl Sunday – he’d decided no-one in their right mind would be at Disneyland that day, but a million people of evident wrong mind proved him to be incorrect. Apparently it was almost impossible to see from one side of Main Street to the other for the throng of bodies. Even more astoundingly, it’s not completely unheard of for Disneyland to close when it’s too full. For a company as dedicated to the pursuit of the almighty dollar as it is to perpetuating the Disney myth, you know that if it willfully turns paying guests away then it really has got to be packed.

I guess it’s stating the obvious, but Disneyland is a thoroughly weird place. There’s great concern in the media about the premature sexualisation of children, but Disneyland flips this on the head, catering for the infantilisation of adults. If those going around carrying helium balloons, singing “It’s a Small World” and wearing Minnie t-shirts and ear hats were classic socially retarded types without friends it would somehow be easier to accept and digest, but the desire to recapture your youth seems to cut across all demographics in Disneyland – no discernable factor seems to provide differentiation between who would and wouldn’t go with it. Trendy teenage guys wear Mickey t-shirts, as do their dates, as they wait in line at the Dumbo ride. In Australia – certainly where I grew up as a kid – they’d be beaten to a pulp. Here, no one seems the least bit surprised. I’d noticed it in Hong Kong Disney and had put it down to a peculiarity of the region –adult Japanese women giggling coyly in knee-high white socks and private schoolgirl uniforms – but it’s obviously not the case. It’s just a Disney Thing I don’t get. I’ve got no issues with Disney, no particularly strong feelings one way or the other, but the idea of me slipping on a Mickey t-shirt and ears would just seem bizarre. I’d do it for a dare; here, it’s standard issue.

On this trip I’ve been to two worlds of fantasy, catering to every whim, anxious for you to smile, spend your money, and come back year after year – Disneyland and Vegas. Like Vegas, it seems the more I visit it, the less I’m sure about how I feel about it. The comparison with Las Vegas isn’t as irrelevant as it might seem at first blush – both are synthetic, completely artificial constructs dedicated to living without consequence, to the might of the consumer, the power of the almighty dollar, and the firmly stated (if not necessarily believed) dream of everyone living happily ever after. I don’t have as much of an issue with Disneyland relative to Vegas – in Vegas, real people can and do get hurt. In Disneyland, broken dreams amount to not getting a ride on the Matterhorn. In Vegas, they’re far, far blacker and don’t offer the luxury of allowing you to get up earlier so you can beat the crowds the next day.

I guess I don’t have an issue with it at all, the more I think about it. Ultimately, I think, I just don’t get it. It’s just weird – hell, I’m weird – but this is an entirely different kind of weird. I’m glad it’s the Happiest Place on Earth, I guess, glad it’s something children can love before they become too jaded with the world, but I’m also glad it’s surrounded by walls - not to keep us out, but to keep it in. I’d hate it to spill out and mess with reality too much.

How the hell does Malibu Barbie get out of her house?

Against my better judgment I crawled out of bed around 6:20am, dressed as silently as it’s possible for an ill-coordinated lump like myself to do, and headed down to the foreshore - determined to capture a hopefully compelling time-lapse of Morro Rock at sunrise. Although the experience of standing around on the rocks, watching sea otters and sea lions play off shore while the sun rose and threw three smokestack shadows across the rock was no doubt good for the soul, the benefits were offset by my own idiocy – it turned out my awesome time-lapse was marred by me underexposing the lot by a stop, my tripod being on a lean, and a huge chunk of crud on my lens leading to a nice black spot on every frame. “Fix it in post” seems to be becoming a new mantra. More likely the pace of things is starting to catch up, at last.

It was another unusually hot, sticky day in Morro Bay, and the room hadn’t cooled significantly despite the balcony door being left open all night. We packed up in humid discomfort, once again defying physics and managing to squash everything into the Escape, and hit the road for the last significant drive of the holiday – completing the loop, and returning to LA along sinuous, sweeping roads of Highway 1 seemingly custom made for car commercials, until finally making the disastrous decision to chuck a right after passing through less-than-glamorous Santa Barbara, then through less-than-less-than-glamorous Oxnard, and finally onto Malibu.

When I think of magical, evocative names conjuring up wild, heady, sun-soaked day and seductive, jasmine-scented evenings, Oxnard isn’t amongst them. It’s not so much that anything is wrong with the place, as much as that nothing is remarkable about it – from my experience it was little more than seemingly never ending string of traffic lights, faded looking shopping complexes and weed stuffed footpaths running up against blistered bitumen melting as one under the blazing southern California sun. Given the choice, though, I’d live there over Malibu.

Malibu is one of those places which somehow is exactly as you’d always imagined it, only to realize you hadn’t imagined it fully enough to appreciate just how wretched it truly is. Everything in my imaginings of the place (which admittedly, weren’t exactly comprehensive) were there - the thin, silvered strip of sand at the foot of countless stilted bungalows exiting onto a road behind them – but when you start to understand the logistics of what you’re dealing with, it’s apparently you’ve entered as close as I’ve ever come to Beach Hell.

It’s a town of 13,000 people, all of whom apparently live on a narrow strip of buildable land between crumbling mountains and eroding beach. Highway 1, slap-bang in the middle, takes up half the space meaning the end result is that, on the mountain side of Malibu, your multi-million dollar home and pool overlooks a choked highway, and thousands of garages of folk who are evidently wealthier than you and can afford absolute beach-front property. In the land of opportunity and relentless drive to succeed, it’s a constant reminder you were good, but not quite good enough.

Not that it’s better on the beach side of Malibu, where multi-million dollar shacks are perched at the edge of the Pacific, their thin purchase on the scrap of land that side of Highway 1 constantly dropping into the sea. Here you’d avoid the fumes and traffic of Highway 1 blighting the view from the Upper Side, but would be constantly grabbing for towels as you step naked from the bathroom, neighbors mere feet away, choking in horror on their organic granola. You have no backyard other than a car-length of space to the highway, and no front yard of your own - just hordes of weekend blow-ins playing spot-the-celebrity-and-upload-them-to-Facebook, all checking you out on your scrap of balcony, your own not-so-private slice of paradise, from the beach 10 feet away.

I love the beach – I’d love to be fortunate enough to live near the beach – but this isn’t living near the beach. This is living on the beach. With 1000 people you’ve never met, but have waved at, naked, whilst eating organic granola.

The fun of Malibu is that, to quote The Eagles, you can check out any time you like… but you can never leave. I can’t begin to imagine how you’d actually cross the road, if you lived there, but I presume it would involve a car, and would go something like this:

• Open garage door and creep car out onto your very own, car-length driveway
• Proceed to do 50 point turn to ensure car faces traffic, rather than is reversing into traffic
• Build revs, dump clutch, perform long, leisurely, snaking burn-out onto Highway 1 accompanied by a cheery wave at terrified passers-by as you demonstrate your The Fast and The Furious "Doriftu Sensei" honed skills.
• Execute well-practiced handbrake turn when you realize you’re heading the wrong way, emptying contents of 20oz coffee cup on power suit.
• Repeat as necessary.

The misery of Malibu is that, passing through, you don’t get to experience any of it. Not the beach, anyway. Just a jam packed succession of cars and traffic lights winding its way along the coast, only an occasional flirtatious glimpse of sea, shimmering like mackerel, through inch-wide gaps in the relentless row of driveways and garages facing the road. Malibu is a good beach, ruined. In my mind it was once an exotic weekend destination for those who lived and worked in LA and Hollywood – now, an exotic weekend destination is somewhere further. Pismo Beach, maybe. Or Morro Bay. Malibu is a cautionary tale.

After enduring a two hour drive covering maybe barely 20 miles we were only too happy to decide to skip Santa Monica Pier, sparkling becomingly through tobacco coloured smog, and instead pressed on to the mad-crazy race circuit that is I-10… currently being rebuilt. All of a sudden, Santa Monica pier and even Malibu seemed like attractive options as we were stuck fast, trapped in a canyon straight out of the Death Star, inching forward at the collective rate of 3 miles an hour. All credit to those alongside us on the freeway, as there were barely any instances of fatuously optimistic honking. Indeed, no-one lost their cool, no-one opted to reload, and Michael Douglas from Falling Down, armed with a rocket launcher, was not to be seen.

Ultimately a sign offering escape – “I-405, next exit” – beckoned through a glinting, steaming sea of cars and we crept mercifully onto the exit ramp, joining traffic which bore some semblance of moving. We drove past LAX – tying the knot, completing the loop, the trip now officially coming to a close – in blazing afternoon sunlight, finally slipping onto 22 east and to the cool sanctuary of the Meridian Inn and Suites nestled in the relative serenity of Anaheim, completely and utterly knackered.

The kids hit the pool. I hit the bottle. And then, as one, we plotted our all out assault on Disneyland for the last two days of our trip.

Otter – the other white meat

For the first time this holiday we actually had time to burn, a strange sensation. With little else to do except wait until 1:00pm for a trip out on Elkhorn Slough, we had a slow start then decided to get out in the sun and head as far down Highway 1 as we could. Regretfully, it would have been perfect weather for a drive down to Big Sur, all sunshine, sea haze and gentle, ruffling sea breezes.

Incidentally, I would like to notify everyone I’ve officially decided Big Sur shall be my new nickname. How cool would that be? “Hey everybody, here comes Big Sur”. Sure beats some of the lesser ones I’ve had. But I digress.

We headed as far as we could, through coastal redwoods, winding groves and, presumably, past Clint Eastwood’s house where we finally got to the end of the road, maybe 5 miles north of the famous Bixby Bridge, just past Point Lobos where we stopped, squinted through the haze hoping to catch sight of the bridge (without success), turned around and headed back after stopping to take some photos from a restaurant offering a nice view down the coast.

Deciding we needed to get something resembling food to keep us going the next couple of days, we took the turn off to Carmel only to drive straight past the Carmel Mission, looking for all the world like it should be 1000 miles south, or in a Sergio Leone Western. I’d love to have had the time to check it out, but time was disappearing and we still had food to buy, so we had to pass this time around. As it turned out, we only just made it back to Moss Landing in time to board the pontoon, tie on life-jackets, and head out on the near still waters of Elkhorn Slough to go otter hunting.

At last, it seemed, our recent spate of misfortune was turned around. It was an absolutely perfect two hours of chugging around Elkhorn Slough, spotting roughly 3% of the entire Sea Otter population, drifting around in large pods, known as rafts, wrapped in kelp, pounding the crap out of clams dredged up from the murky mud-banks of the slough, rubbing their faces vigorously as though they’d just woken up, and generally doing everything possible to amp up the cuteness wherever possible. They’re also absolutely delicious – our captain harpooned one as we were drifting past, gutted it in lightning-quick time, and before you could say “protected mammal” we were enjoying the most outstanding otter taco’s you’ve ever experienced.

Obviously that last bit is a bit of a flight of fantasy. Clearly only a mad man would make a taco out of meat as delicate and tender as otter. We ate ours raw.

The trip would have been outstanding even without multiple, repeated otter, Harbor Seal and migratory bird spotting – perfect weather, no swell, sunshine and, just at the right time, a quick round of coffees and cookies. And no driving. What’s not to like?

We eventually, regretfully, drifted back to the dock, and handed the chick who was doing the wildlife talks a $5 tip to help her get through Uni. That may sound a bit tight fisted – and probably is – but given we’d already spent $122 for a two hour trip on a motorized raft, my fiscal rectitude might be a little more understandable. Still, we bought some otter related merch at the kids’ insistence, then jumped back into the Escape to head south as far as possible.

Ultimately, we made it to Morro Bay on what, for it, was an unseasonably warm afternoon. It’s a near-perfect California sea-side town, an echo of what I imagine Monterey and Carmel once were, dominated by a massive… erm…  massif, witlessly named Morro Rock, parked square in the middle of the bay and connected to land by a man-made concourse of stone blasted away from the rock itself, prior to its protection in 1963. Sadly, the rock itself is overshadowed – literally - by the triple smoke stacks of a power station artlessly plonked nearby by some environmentally mute clod years before, much like Elkhorn Slough and Moss Landing.

After securing a pleasant but blazing hot sea-view hotel room at the Days Inn we wandered down along footpath-less roads for a seafood dinner on the waterfront, seals barking under a large fishing net full of what I can only assume was something a seal would find irresistible, then walked in gathering darkness to pick out spots for a sunrise shot of Morro Rock the following morning.

The night was warm and still, the kids (and us) had no desire to call it a night, so we wandered, meandering past shops and restaurants inhabited to varying degrees by locals and visitors alike. One proudly told everyone it was “Morro Bay’s best kept secret”, presumably in a desperate effort to no longer be Morro Bay’s best kept secret. Ultimately the fatigue of the day won out so we returned to our stifling room for a scotch and a less than satisfying sleep on a windless, hot night.

Monterey Blues

When you have a run of good luck, it invariably ends. Sadly, when you have a run of bad luck it doesn’t.

Our luck didn’t improve – we decided to try and book in at ridiculously short notice on the Elkhorn Slough cruise in the hopes of seeing sea otters bobbing about entangled in strands of kelp (and hopefully, still breathing). Naturally the cruise was fully booked, but there were spots available at 1:00pm tomorrow. Given that was the day we were planning on driving Highway 1, we went for it, committed to a non-refundable $130-odd dollars in exchange for puttering around a river on a pontoon for two hours, and headed out for Monterey Aquarium at the end of Cannery Row.

Cannery Row, made famous by John Steinbeck, does everything possible in its collective power to constantly remind you it’s Cannery Row, made famous by John Steinbeck – it’s almost impossible to travel a few steps without some Steinbeckian reference or other. In a way it’s a bit of a pity, as there’s no need for such desperation – it’s attractive enough in its own right that it doesn’t need to trade relentlessly on the talents of its long-expired favourite son. Having said that, Cannery Row doesn’t actually have a lot of stuff to see and do, to be honest – it’s basically a string of refurbished warehouses and canneries converted into factory outlets and dinky souvenir shops. For my mind, the entire reason to visit is to find a park and head to Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The Aquarium claims to be world famous, as does almost everything in the US (see previous posts) but in this case it’s entirely appropriate, justified and, probably, true. First impressions deceive - when you walk into the building you’re faced with what resembles a concrete mall with most aquarium tanks clustered at either end, making the experience feel more like you’ve walked into a museum, or a contemporary art gallery. Then as you start exploring in more detail, it’s apparent that it really is vast, with a massive number of exhibits worthy of more than a passing look, and able to account for a full day. It also manages to straddle the fine line in being educational without being boring, condescending or giving you the feeling it’s ramming things in your face, and achieves the possibly even more outstanding task of not boring the crap out of 5 and 6 year olds. We trawled (to use a probably inappropriate bit of fishing terminology) through everything, literally from end to end, taking in tidal pools, million gallon tanks full of fish and the occasional oceanographer, rays, jellies, sea otters, giant octopi, and seahorses (including my favorite, the leafy sea dragon, which gave me a little pang of nostalgia when I saw the map showing its distribution as, basically, home). There was also a well done, decidedly unpreachy but still disturbing bit on the impact of global warming upon various animals from penguins and polar bears through to “hot pink flamingoes”. In short, if you can tear yourself away from Fisherman’s Wharf and outlet shopping, visit – to my mind, any organization providing a box jellyfish able to kill Will Smith is worth a look.

With a couple of hours left in the day to burn, we decided to do the famous Pebble Beach/Carmel 17 Mile Drive, home to a cluster of world-class golf courses, the iconic Lone Cypress, and a number of evidently obscenely wealthy individuals. 17 Mile Drive is also, as far as I’m aware, the only public road which charges you for the privilege of driving it. I’d be curious to know who maintains the roads, but given the charge I’d sure as hell hope it’s not the US Government. When I last visited 11 years ago I was horrified at the prospect (“What? $6.50 to drive a stretch of road? They can get stuffed”), but evidently my more socialist streak has faded with time and I shelled out the now $9.50 in exchange for a map studded with attractions, some meritorious, others less so and seemingly included to make the route seem like you were getting a whole bunch of really cool stuff, when in reality most people just go to check out the golf courses and Lone Cypress, arguably the most famous tree on earth. We did both, naturally, staggered at the ridiculously daring placement of greens on small rocky outcrops jutting into the raging sea, the smell of crisp $100 bills in the air, and the sheer awesome spectacle of arguably some of the most awesome natural coastal scenery on earth, certainly in the US. Golfers would collapse weeping, either in delight or horror at the no doubt completely mental course fees.

Lone Cypress is one of those places you go to, hoping it looks exactly the way it does in photos, only to be slightly disappointed it looks exactly the way it does in photos. Well, almost exactly. Regretfully, the base of the tree and the peninsula it crouches on is now buttressed with stone walls, designed, according to the helpful signboard nearby, to ensure Lone Cypress continues to survive for another 50 years. I photographed it enthusiastically, as did the others who drifted into and out of the pull-out, but part of me thought maybe when Lone Cypress decides it’s had enough and falls into the sea, nothing should stop it from happening. It’s life – not a museum piece which should be shielded from the elements. I’m fine with wanting to do everything possible to ensure some numbskull doesn’t attempt to vandalize it or chop it down, but think it should be let alone to be what it is, and what it ultimately becomes, not to keep it as it was - a snapshot in time. Still, in its tenacious, tenuous grip on the side of a cliff, just metres from falling into oblivion below, it really is achingly beautiful…

We headed back through a seemingly random winding route to Monterey, wanting to cover every square centimeter of 17 mile drive to get our damn money’s worth, then swung by an excellent restaurant for dinner (track down Café Mexicali if you’re in the neighborhood – it’s great, especially the margarita’s), and called it a day.

The damn otters had better be there tomorrow.

"You know what it is? San Francisco is a golden handcuff with the key thrown away."

Jackson dragged the curtains back flamboyantly to reveal, somewhat staggeringly, yet another sensational day, slightly hazier than the previous but still, on the scale of things, pretty damn awesome. After a few days of bleakness at Zion and the Grand Canyon I was beginning to think that on the weather front at least our luck had failed us, but thankfully it wasn’t the case.

We managed to defy physics and squeeze an ever increasing amount of crap into the same space in the back of the Escape and headed for the Golden Gate Park, given we only had to make it to Monterey. It was, as mentioned, a perfect day for walking but we’d pretty well walked ourselves out the day before so we limited ourselves to the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Gardens, then a quick lap of  Stow Lake. Based on past experience I’d promised Jackson and Elise they’d see turtles, sunning themselves on the lake, then after constant reminders I started to drad the possibility we’d dip out on this front. Thankfully, we spotted them, quite possibly the same turtles, sunning themselves on the same log they were using 11 years ago. Yet another crisis averted, more by dumb luck than anything else. Story of my life.

We went back to the car and finally bit San Francisco a teary good-bye. Well, me anyway – Nic and the kids were fine as we swung onto Highway 1 to finally, truly, head for LA and, ultimately, home. I tend to get a little morose at this point, travelling - when I can no longer argue that the adventure is still continuing, when it’s painfully obvious it’s winding down, it’s a bit of a bleak sensation. Thankfully, the scenery heading south down Highway 1, through a surprising amount of traffic for mid-week, was awesome enough to snap me out of it. We passed through Half Moon Bay, all treacherous, pounding surf, rolling fields of farmland studded with timber barns, and hills still covered in lush greenery and continued through to Davenport, which had a feel more like an Aussie sea-side beach town than what I’d have imagined in the USA – weathered timber shop-fronts, sagging fly-screens and creaking doors. We stopped for a coffee and a few snacks, then attempted to fly through Santa Cruz but ground to a long, agonizing halt in near gridlock for 45 minutes, before the traffic finally eased and we progressed, unimpeded, along coastal road draped along sheer mountainsides crashing into the Pacific surf, down onto more rolling country, and, Elkhorn Slough, a wildlife reserve about 15 minutes north of Monterey, which is – apparently – a stepping off point for sea-otter spotting.

After reading about the California sea-otter and discovering the perfect time to see these once critically-endangered animals was from early April, we basically organized our entire trip around them. We hadn’t decided which direction to do our holiday when we first started planning it, but because of them we’d opted to drive in a counter-clockwise loop so we’d arrive at Monterey as late as possible on our holiday, to give us the best chance.

Naturally, Elkhorn Slough was closed. Elkhorn Slough, for those planning on visiting, is closed Sunday through Tuesday. It was Tuesday.

Somewhat disheartened, we drove on to Monterey and swung by the Visitors Centre, where I proceeded to get even more disheartened, learning that Highway 1, including Bixby Bridge and Big Sur, was closed due to massive mudslides that had washed out big chunks of the highway only a couple of weeks before. We conceded it was just one of those things and started kicking around alternate routes in our mind as we headed onto Fisherman’s Wharf where – lo and behold! – sea otters were frolicking, in a manner only sea otters, presumably, can, maybe 50 metres from the jetty. The camera was largely useless, and a manual-focus only tele-converter I’d bought with me from a friend of mine did nothing to help, so for once I gave up on any ideas photographic and just watched them, floating on their backs, pounding at clams and crabs on their bellies with rocks sought specifically for the purpose. Without a doubt it was the highlight of the day.

We bypassed the food on offer at Fisherman’s Wharf – plenty of it looked, and smelled, great but when you’re traveling with three others who aren’t massive fish types, it limits your options a smidgen – and instead went to Troia’s Market, where six or seven items including such opulence as hotdogs, buns, juice and a frozen meal inexplicably and jaw-droppingly added up to $37.

Handy Travel Tip – give the place the big swerve. I’ll go on the record. Troia’s Market is a rip-off.

To make matters worse, the hotdogs expired at the end of February. We decided to run the gauntlet and have them anyway, so, given I’m still typing this happily enough, I guess they were

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco

After a ridiculously good sleep (which wasn’t really expected, being smack bang in the middle of San Francisco) we woke up to an absolutely perfect day for walking – no humidity, blue skies, and sunshine. Not wanting to squander too much of it, we had odds and sods for breakfast (which wasn’t included) and hit the streets, heading south east toward the gates of Chinatown, and stopped off fleetingly for a cup of coffee at Starbucks on the corner.

A woman standing nearby seemed almost normal at first. She seemed sort of neatly dressed and turned out, but something wasn’t quite right – the black eye she was sporting was probably a bit of a pointer. At first she seemed like she was just waiting for the lights to change, engaging us in idle conversation, telling us that we should hold onto our children tightly because they grow up so fast, then out of the blue she was berating passers by, begging for someone to give her a cigarette because she hadn’t had one for days, then the switch would flip back and she’d return to normal, asking where we were from and what we were planning on checking out. We drank our coffee and headed north up Grant St through Chinatown, leaving her to her erratic rantings, then clambered up a road so steep the kids were casting about for cams and carabiners and made it up to Coit Tower. I’d been there back in 2000, and the kids seemed pretty disinterested in going up to the top, happy enough just to check out the murals surrounding the gift shop and elevators, so we shot through a couple of minutes later and continued down Grant, and onward to Pier 39.

As has been the case for the past 21 years, the Sea Lions were still there, although from my memory at least there were a lot fewer than last time. Still, they were in fine voice, putting on arguably the best free show in San Francisco for visitor and local alike, jostling and biting one another constantly for the perceived best spot then playing up to the crowd like wrestling performers before others attempted to usurp their positions, .the ritual repeating itself.

After a quick lap of the tourist stops at the pier, some fish and chips and a massive battle with the kids over their refusal to eat ‘orange cheese’ (can’t blame them really, it’s pretty plasticky and not too flash!), then walked along the waterfront until the smell of Boudin’s hit us.

Apparently it’s a San Francisco institution, although I’m not so sure whether that’s for the locals or the tourists. Boudin’s specializes in sour-dough bread, and deploys a fearsome attack weapon which should be banned under the terms of the Geneva Convention – they vent baking smells from their ovens directly to the street, so you have to walk through a bready, sour-dough flavoured cloud. Even if you didn’t buy anything, you’d smell like a walking loaf of bread – free advertising, in a way, for Boudin’s. Having said all that, the bread is definitely good, and the front window and shop represent yet another show – automation moulds bread into the classic loaf, baguette and stick shapes, but hands-on bakers stand in the window, sculpting custom pieces of edible art – crabs, lobsters, rabbits, even alligators – by hand. Baked products are then delivered by an aerial tramway of baskets suspended from a cable, from the bakery to the storefront. It’s hypnotic to watch, and needless to say I was suckered in to buying a normal 1lb loaf, plus a ‘mama bunny’ loaf, ostensibly ‘for the kids’. I got away lightly at under $10 – people in front and behind me were spending anywhere up to $50 on sourdough of various shapes and sizes. Who are these people? What planet do they come from? I have no answers.

In full tourist mode, we walked to the end of the ‘tourist’ section of waterfront, waited 45 minutes for the Hyde/Powell cable car, and rode it back to Broadway – we could have probably walked it in less time than we spent waiting for it, but the kids loved the open air nature of the thing, and I have to admit I’d have been a bit miffed if I hadn’t been able to score a spot on the outside, hanging off the railings. I did it back in 2000, but honestly, who wouldn’t say no to doing it again… if they could just do something about the wait.

Nic and the kids returned to the hotel, where I knocked back a beer and managed to summon sufficient energy to do battle with the late afternoon San Francisco traffic and head to Alamo Square. I’ve got to say, San Francisco is hard work driving around. The blocks are pretty small, and the intersection of every block seemingly comes with a four way stop sign, lights, or a sign declaring no left turns when you want to turn left, or one-way signs in the opposite direction to that which you want to travel in. It took me 15 minutes to travel 20 blocks south and 6 blocks west to Alamo Square. Still, on the upside, San Francisco drivers – at least from my experience – display legendary levels of patience and courtesy compared with those in other cities. I was behind a trolley bus which had to stop, mid intersection near Haight Ashbury, while a guy stood in the middle of the road, on crutches, having a chat with a guy in his car, stopped at a sign. No one tooted, gesticulated madly, or yelled obscenities. I either happened to randomly encounter a ridiculously blessed out group of people, or it’s representative of the greater whole. I’m sure I’ll hear back from someone, one way or the other.

Eventually I made it to Alamo Square, parked on Fulton in what I suspect might have been a tow-away zone, and ran for the square to catch the late afternoon sun of a perfect spring day on the ‘Painted Ladies’, a group of beautifully decorated houses facing west, with the city behind them. Trust me, if you’ve seen any movie set in San Francisco, you’ve seen them. I wasn’t the only one with the idea, however, as groups of people were picnicking on the square, enjoying the sun. Still, with visions of my car being impounded I ran back, jumped in and went back to the hotel, then maybe 15 minutes later decided to continue pressing my luck to head out and take photos of the sunset on the Golden Gate bridge from the headlands of Marin County.

Naturally, I should have quit with Alamo Square. After completely missing my exit travelling north I finally turned around and made it a few minutes after sunset, got some hopefully reasonable shots, then managed to take an exit off 101 and ended up on Highway 1 south. Figuring I’d just head east until I hit a street I recognized was, for me, something approaching a cohesive plan, but as previously highlighted San Francisco doesn’t like to do anything in too straightforward a manner – streets you want to take are either one-way, you’re prohibited from turning, or they dive into tunnels. When you don’t know your way around, it’s a recipe for complete disaster, and I love it. I finally crawled into the hotel maybe two hours after I left, wrote, then nodded off around midnight, somewhat disconsolate at the thought that this was my last night in San Francisco.

For now, anyway.

Isn't it nice that people who prefer Los Angeles to San Francisco live there?

After the complete driving balls up of the previous day, we weren’t in any rush to go hit the freeway too quickly, so we instead treated ourselves to a fully cooked breakfast, as provided at the Pacific Inn - packet pancakes warmed up to seem like fresh pancakes, artificial scrambled eggs made up to look like real scrambled eggs, frozen, fully pre-cooked sausages heated in a bain-marie to resemble genuine, ‘cooked this morning’ sausages, and chopped bacon floating in a sea of broth designed to resemble… well, chopped bacon floating in a sea of broth, I guess. Truth is, it wasn’t too bad – it just resembled they typical US budget hotel approach to food: something to fill you up and get you on your way. Which, come to think of it, was pretty well exactly what we did.

Sadly our run to San Francisco was cut short by a Toys R Us spied on the left so we took the first exit, bought yet more must-have purchases (a Lego Ninjagu Ice-Dragon and more Zoobles) and passed through heavy traffic, all the more surprising given it was only around 11:00am Sunday, on Highway 101 north, turning into Van Ness and going straight past our hotel at the corner of Van Ness and Broadway, before I finally got the chance to fulfill a lifelong dream of driving over the Golden Gate Bridge.

We headed north through Marin County, which is a sensational place, and no doubt heinously expensive – it’s essentially a country hamlet located only a couple of miles from the Golden Gate, and hence, civilization. You’d never know how close you were to the rat race by the feel of the region, as it’s all pick-up trucks, weatherboard houses, and a relaxed, bucolic pace. Apparently it’s one of the most affluent counties in the United States. I’d believe it.

Ultimately we successfully navigated our way to Muir Woods, only to find it was the mad-house which might be expected given everyone no doubt had the same idea as us: a walk in the woods on a beautiful Sunday morning. We ended up parking a mile away, and began the slow trudge up to the main entrance, collected a couple of treasure hunt brochures for the kids on the way in (which ultimately, after much effort, ended up rewarding them with a sticker each, much to their collective disbelief), and started our way up the man boardwalk through groves of Coastal Redwoods, one of the very few remaining stands left in the San Francisco area thanks to the foresight of William Kent, who not only  bought it with his own money, but then gave it over to the greater public and, with one last act of outrageous humility, insisted it be named after the naturalist John Muir, despite others nearly insisting it be named after Kent himself. Somehow I just can’t imagine Steve Jobs buying a massive tract of land, donating it to the public and insisting on it being named the David Attenborough Woods. Prove me wrong, Steve.

Needless to say it was a magical place, all slanted beams of sunlight, fast-flowing brooks and impenetrable groves massed with dense, natural plantings of various native flora. Regardless however, I’ve got to run the risk of incurring the wrath of friends of mine who live in San Francisco and admit that the coastal redwoods just can’t hold a candle to the sheer, outrageous bulk of the giant Sequoia redwoods in Mariposa Grove out near Yosemite National Park. Sensational, absolutely, but not the most sensational.

Not in any rush to get back to San Francisco, we took our time, only to find the weather change for the worse and what was initially just a heavy mist finally settled into permanently, steady drizzle. Somehow though, it was of little impact – the rain falling in the forest just heightened the experience, even when I opted to go pick up the car to save the kids from getting soaked, and had a one mile walk along wet roads, water streaming off me. How bad can it be, after all? I’d rather be walking in Muir Woods on holidays, soaked to the bone, than be soaked to the bone pretty much anywhere else.

The car steaming up thanks to the crush of bodies and wet clothing, we rejoined bumper-to-bumper traffic on Highway 1, forked out $6 to take the south-bound route over the Golden Gate, and a few minutes later were squeezing into an impossibly small carpark in the basement of the Manor Inn. For $69, plus tax, it’s a bit of a bargain given its location – nothing flash, and no breakfast, but a decent sized room with two queen sized beds, coffee and tea making facilities, a microwave and a fridge is hard to argue with.

We ended up having a night in, making a dinner – of sorts – cobbled together from random pickings in our suitcases and backpacks, ready for an early start, a hopeful end to the drizzly conditions, and a day of walking tomorrow.

~ Herb Caen