California Dreamin'

So, from Death Valley we headed in the direction of San Luis Obispo to start driving the Californian Big Sur. First of all, we paid a visit to Hearst Castle in San Simeon which was a bit opulent and over the top really.  Plus there was nothing especially original as it was all based on European architecture, just like so many other places in the states.

Hearst Castle

The dining room

The pool

Spot the difference!?!

During the drive up the west coast we stopped at a number of little towns some quite pretty and some a tad dull.  We also stopped at Bixby bridge so Rob could take some snaps ... Oops I mean photographs, apparently mine are known as snaps!

Monterey was a nice little town for a wander where we checked out the beach and the quaint little shops.  The 17 mile drive was interesting with lots of rugged coastline and some super expensive real estate.  To be honest as we'd seen heaps of dramatic coastline in Australia and Hawaii, for a lot of the California coast we just drove on by.

A few elephant seals on the beach

Monterey

The lone cypress on the 17 mile drive

From the Big Sur we headed to San Francisco where we have been a few times before but it wouldn't feel right just to skip it and we managed to find a few things we hand't done before which was good.  We paid a visit to the Golden Gate Bridge (from a few new vantage points), took a drive down the really windy Lombard Street (or Crooked Street as the famous part of it is known) and paid a visit to Yoda at his home (no, not Dagobah) at the Lucasfilm offices - this was "awesome" for no other reason than it was all about Star Wars!  Speaking of Lombard Street, it turns out the approach was far more interesting than the actual street itself - we have never been in a car driving up such a vertical street, it was quite entertaining especially when Rob had to stop at the top and do a hill start, he didn't roll back down it either, nice job!

Rob's idol!

So happy!

We left California and headed north into Oregon.  It's not the sort of must visit places you think of going to when you go to the States and to be honest it seemed a bit "hicksville" in places.  That said, we stopped in a couple of places to take in a few sights.  We visited Crater Lake which was very blue and also a bit chilly as there was still plenty of snow around (one of our few brushes with winter on this trip!).  Our legs did sink into the snow now and again and my whole body almost disappeared whilst making my snow angel!

Attempting a snow angel!

A cool camper van!

The drive through tree

A busy day!

A bit further along the road we hit Vancouver in Washington.  We actually used this as our base for the Portland area as basically everything we read said Portland was a bit rough!  We went for a drive along the 'historic' Columbia River highway and there were a few pretty places to stop and quite a few waterfalls.  Multnomah Falls was rather impressive, Horsetails Falls was OK and we took a short hike to Oneonta Falls.  The Oregon side of the river had far more sights to see than the Washington side, but made a nice afternoon out.

Columbia River highway

Multnomah falls

Oneonta falls

Whilst we were in Vancouver we took a drive to Portland (in our armoured Hummer!) to take advantage of the zero sales tax that Oregon offers on all things you buy.  As we won't be coming back to North America for a few years Rob decided to treat himself (again)!  This time a Macbook Pro - apparently they are very good for viewing (and tweaking) his photos and I was told it was so much cheaper than it would be at home so that obviously sold it to me ;-)  Our hand luggage now weighs an absolute ton!

On the way to the USA/Canadian border we called into Seattle to collect a cheque, hooray some unexpected money .... And all as a result of complaining about bad car rental service - bonus!  I guess that was a contribution to the Macbook!

After what felt like an interrogation at the border (from the Canadians - how rude), we crossed into Canada and were heading for the other Vancouver.  We stayed in this one for 3 days and took a cycling tour of Stanley Park, visited the Vancouver lookout, took a walk across the Capilano suspension bridge and took a bus ride to have a look around Granville Island.  Granville Island is quite different to downtown Vancouver - it has a large local food market, lots of small local shops and is a really good place just to sit back, relax and people watch whilst being serenaded by the buskers (one of which was rubbish, he thought he was French, Italian and Spanish all at the same time!).

Lance Armstrong - not on steroids!

Some totem poles in Stanley Park

Lions Gate bridge

Capilano suspension bridge

At Capilano

View from Vancouver lookout

Vancouver lookout at twilight

Puppetry at Granville Island!

Our hotel was on East Hastings Street and a part of this street is known for being quite rough and we needed to pass through this bit to get to and from downtown.  The hotel staff told us not to walk through there but to get the bus, so this we did ... It must be one of the roughest parts of Vancouver or anywhere that we have seen.  We were safe enough on the bus, even late at night, but when passing through this area it looked really run down and there were so many homeless people, drunks and gangs just hanging out.  It looked really intimidating and we did see tourists wandering through as they stuck out like a sore thumb - when we spotted some of the 'locals' starting to follow them we knew we'd done the right thing.  Not a nice part of Vancouver to be, but I guess it happens in all big cities.

Anyway, next we're heading to another favourite the Canadian Rockies, just for one more look at those lovely bears...