After a pretty relaxing week up in Washington we took a flight down to Ontario, CA. We were going to fly into LAX but were advised a smaller more intimate airport would be better. It was. We got out of the airport quickly, picked up the hire car quickly and hit the freeways of LA to get to our apartment in downtown.
Turns out our downtown apartment really was very downtown! We went out for dinner at a Thai restaurant but managed to take a wrong turn on the way there and ended up on the road with all the stars in the pavement., Hollywood Boulevard.
We hung out in LA for a couple of days and did our best to avoid the major touristy stuff. Scouse offered us some tickets to go to Disney but it was just sooooooo hot that we didn’t fancy standing in a queue for 1hr for a 1 minute ride. We saw the Brae tar pits, Griffith Observatory, shopped for trainers in West Hollywood, ate at Chick Fil A amongst other places, took a long walk down Hollwood Boulevard looking at the stars in the pavement. It was a pretty cool place to be.
After a couple of days in our apartment in LA we decided to head out to the beach and so rented a hotel near Venice Beach. It only took about an hour to get there and was a pretty cool place. The big revelation was the constant smell of weed. I don’t mind a bit of weed, used to quite like the smell – but after days of being constantly bombarded by it – well, it got a little much really. Maybe the UK should decriminalise rather than legalise, but ho hum, I digress.
We rented a bike each from the beach and headed north towards Santa Monica Pier along the Venice Beach cycle path. We had an excellent time. Cruising along with other people on skateboards, e-bikes, scooters. Was truly epic. Then the day took a turn for the worse. After we handed the bikes back we were wandering in the general direction of our hotel looking for somewhere to eat lunch, and drink some beer, when out of nowhere appeared a muscle bound psychopath. Emma and Oli saw him stomping down the road with no shirt, fists clenched, a look of anger on his face yelling stuff and gave the dude a wide berth. Unfortunately I was in a bit of a world of my own and only saw him at the last second. I swerved to avoid him but he took a sidestep in my direction and full on shoulder checked me. He then spun around and started hurling racial abuse. “Show some fucking respect white boy. I’m gonna punch those curly blonde hairs out of your fucking head” – stuff along those lines. Was pretty scary really. I kept walking expecting a punch to the back of the head at some point but he moved on to harass somebody else, and we drank quite a few calming beers. On the bright side at least I now have a crazy story of some big black dude harassing me in LA.
The next morning we were heading to Monterey which despite looking like a teeny tiny distance on the map actually took us hours. Many fun bits to this road trip but one particularly memorable bit was the pit-stop in Paso Robles. Whilst we were in America it was hot. Seriously hot. Unseasonably hot. As we got out of the car in Paso Robles to visit Jack-in-the-box [ they actually give you the food in a box ] the temperature was 109F. It was unbearably hot and made my skin tingle just standing in it. Fortunately by the time we arrived in Monterey it was 20deg cooler.
Many fun bits in Monterrey. Me messing up the uber and getting us dropped off in the middle of nowhere and having to hike the rails to trails route into town. Oli getting asked for his number by some girl at the bowling alley. All of us being there at the same time as the Monterrey Car Festival with people slowly driving through The Cannery in old American cars with the suspension bouncing up and down. It was pretty epic…but a little too touristy for me.
After two nights in Monterrey we continued our journey north to meet up with Tommy and Pat in Russian River. Driving over the Golden Gate bridge was a little disappointing as the top was hidden by mist. Our planned stop at Muir Woods to see the Redwoods had to be abandoned since it seems it’s turned into a proper tourist attraction since Emma and I last visited twenty years ago and now you have to reserve a parking space! However, it was great to arrive in the middle of nowhere [ but surrounded by Redwoods which was cool ] at Tommy’s rented cabin in the woods. We kayaked on the river, we drank beer, we played darts and generally caught up with T and P whom we hadn’t seen for far too long.
After two nights of sleeping on Tommy’s mezzanine with the ceiling inches from my face causing me to bang my head every time I moved in the night, we headed off to Vallejo to borrow Pat’s house for a bit. Before setting off though we went for a walk in Armstrong Woods near Russian River. Just as beautiful as Muir but without all the tourists.
The deal was we look after Pat’s house, cats and plants and in return we have a place to stay rent free. Which was a bargain. When we arrived we could only find one of the cats which was OK as Pat had said the other was very skittish. However as we were exploring the gardens Emma made the rather grizzly discovery of a dead cat that had been partly eaten by something – we think Raccoons. After a bit of a delicate conversation with Pat we were advised to check the dead cats chin since there is a cat similar to Pats that lives in the area but apparently has a hairier chin. So Oliver and I were out in the baking California sunshine using a stick to lift the decaying dead cats head up so we could see its chin. At this point I compared the markings on the dead cat with the markings on a picture of the cat that P had sent me. They were two very different cats.
So we dug a hole, stuck the dead cat in it and filled it over again. Welcome to Vallejo!
From Vallejo the best way to get to San Francisco is to take the ferry from Vallejo Harbour straight into the Port of San Francisco. So we did. We rode the trolley cars, we jumped on buses, we climbed Coit Tower…all 13 floors since the elevator was broken, we walked down Lombard Street and we ate some food in China Town. The thing we didn’t do however, which was a big thing on my bucket list for this trip, was ride in a self driving Waymo taxi. I had the app, I’d been invited to use the taxi system but when I came to put in my credit card details it demanded a zip code with numbers in it. 90210 – that sort of thing. No matter what I tried I couldn’t authenticate my card for the app. So it was with a heavy heart [ after some racial abuse from a homeless black guy! ] that we boarded the ferry and left SF.
I however was not to be deterred. I messaged Jason and asked him to send me his credit card details so that I could book a Waymo. He didn’t believe me at first. Thought I was having a bit of a laugh. But eventually he relented and sent me the details over. I popped them into the Waymo app and with great delight saw the message “Where do you want to go”.
So the next day we caught the ferry back into San Francisco. We hopped on to the cable car from the ferry port that took us, well, frankly we didn’t care where it took us since we planned to get a Waymo at the end, and made sure we sat/stood on the outside of the cable car
Hanging off the side of the cable car taking a photo was a bit dicey
We jumped off the cable car at the last stop. Got shouted at by some crazy white guy wandering the streets of SF, ate some Vietnamese food, and summoned a Waymo.
It was absolutely fantastic. No driver, just a steering wheel moving around with signs all over saying “Don’t touch the wheel”. It drove us for about 25 minutes up to Haight-Ashbury and we wandered around the hippy district looking at cool clothes and shoes. But I don’t think anybody bought anything.
Back to Pats. Ate food, drank wine, slept and then surprisingly Tommy popped in as we were leaving for Oakland Airport to head back to Seattle/Tacoma.
Epic week!