After a twisty, turny drive back down to the 101, we started on the drive to Yosemite. K was driving and did a sterling job as we sat in traffic on the I-580, the I-205 and the Highway 120 before we hit the Southbound Highway 99 and the scenery started to change. We moved from the lush greenery of San Francisco Bay, through arable farmland and finally to cattle grazing land. Once we came off the 99 at Merced to do the final hour up to Yosemite, it was dark. We had a scary moment when a deer came running out in front of us, but K saw it in time and slowed. We finally arrived at our accommodation at about 8pm. Our hosts from San Francisco won’t be joining us as originally planned, unfortunately, which means that K, Kir and I have a massive 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom lodge with a table football table, pool table, ping-pong table, volleyball net, gas barbie and a HUGE fridge all to ourselves til Tuesday.

The beach at Spanish Bay was covered in stone towers. We’re not sure why they’re there and there was no explanation, but they gave the place a certain mystery. The waves were impressive and seemed to be giving the surfers some problems.

I managed to catch a shot of a California Brown Pelican on its way to Bird Rock.

Bird Rock itself was my favourite part of the drive. A large rock just off a bay that was covered in gulls, pelicans, cormorants, seals and sea lions, with constant traffic to and from it.

The Lone Cypress, the symbol of Pebble Beach (who own most of this area), is stuck out on a rocky outcrop.

We stayed until just before sunset, then hit the road back to San Francisco for our last night in The City

The last couple of days have been spent taking in the sights, the sounds, the smells of San Francisco. Yesterday covered most of the touristy parts, starting with a walk to Union Square, along Market through the Financial District

to the Ferry Building.

After that, we took a streetcar (accidentally without paying because we couldn’t find anyone to take our money) to the super-tacky Pier 39. A proper touristy plastic hell, I sort of thought of it as being like training for when we get to Vegas - you really have to get into the spirit of it if you want to enjoy it.

The famous sea lions were basking in the bay, honking their hearts out and stinking to high heaven. They’re comical creatures.

The rest of Fisherman’s Wharf reminded me of any seafront I’ve seen anywhere in the world - amusements and naff t-shirt shops. I was stopped by the Fun Police, who fined me for not smiling whilst jaywalking. I’m hoping that the 20 dollars I gave her for the homeless charity she apparently represented really did go to homeless kids and the ID she showed me wasn’t just some home-made forgery.

Next stop was the twilight trip out to Alcatraz Island. The mist was starting to come in by this time, which made the trip quite eery.

Gulls followed the ferry as we headed out.

In attempting to take some night shots of the SF skyline from Alcatraz Island, I had a bit of a droopy tripod moment. The result was a bit abstract, but I quite liked it.

Today, we headed up Haight St, the centre of the 60s counterculture, in search of trainers and records. Our ultimate destination was the legendary Amoeba Records, a former bowling alley filled to the brim with new and used vinyl and CDs. I elected to not buy any vinyl because of the hassle in getting it home, but took the opportunity of the favourable exchange rate to fill a few gaps in my collection. The only thing off my shopping list I didn’t manage top get was Ts Shi M Mi Re’s ‘Pregnant Fantasy’, which is proving to be somewhat elusive.

We came home on a cable car, again failing to find anyone willing to take our money, and I hung off the side of it for dear life.

Tomorrow, we go to the seaside - Carmel and Monterey.

Today we were picked up by Mike The Awesome Limo Driver in a limo. We weren’t expecting a limo in all its neon-insides glory, but that’s what we had. We drove out to Napa Valley and had tastings in Home Sutter, V Satui, Alpha Omega, Cakebread and Domaine Carneros, picking up a few bottles along the way.

In Alpha Omega we tried their ‘Era’ new wine, which they will be botling next spring and which is going to be bloody expensive, by the sounds of things. It’s is the first time I’ve tried a barrel tasting, and the catheter-style pipette thing amused the more childish of us (yeah, OK, me). It was amazing, a wonderfully complex wine with a long, long finish that kept on going.

I now am sleepy.

Tomorrow, Alcatraz and stuff.

It’s a massive (1000 capacity apparently) venue, with a proper stage, dancefloor, several bars and a mezzanine-style viewing platform and has been really nicely done out. The backstage area looks like it’s going to be well-appointed too (including Tammy Wynette’s trailer as the main band dressing room), which can only help get the acts in. Hopefully it’ll do well - too few dedicated venues are being built around here nowadays. The focus seems to mainly be on clubs or pubs that occasionally put bands on, which generally have accordingly awful sound. It will be interesting to see what it’s like when it’s finished and full of punters, but so far, the signs look very promising.

UPDATE: Great minds think alike, it seems. PPMe operates the same kind of service - I think I prefer the front-end on this one because you don’t have to use the rubbish templates that Ballistic Blue seem to insist on

This is because of this. I’d sort of forgotten all about that little exchange, and certainly wasn’t expecting it to crop up in the pages of a book. Even more scarily, it has a picture of some other people I went to school who I had completely forgotten about.