Category: USA & Canada

We say a fond farewell to our friends and head south to San Juan Bautista. There is a Spanish mission here which was founded on June 24, 1797 by Fermín Lasuén of the Franciscan order. The mission was the fifteenth of the Spanish missions established in present-day California.

The town is quiet with lovely historic buildings. I also spot a beautiful old Cadillac. We sit and people watch, whilst sharing an exceptional chocolate brownie and very good coffee, at Bliss Blendz.

We then head south to Monterey. We walk around briefly, but it is very commercial and busy, and not to our taste. We do however visit the aquarium, which was worthwhile but very echoey and noisy with kids. The kelp forest tank and the one with hammerheads, tuna and dorado were incredible, as were the beautiful jellyfish tanks.

Next there is a short drive to Carmel. We have selected a hotel in the town centre. It is a good choice and conveniently placed for a very short walk to the numerous bars and restaurants. We have been recommended to visit ‘AW Shucks’ for oysters and cocktails. It does not disappoint. We move on to ‘Giovanni’ for dinner and end with a final cocktail at ‘Hogs Breath’. Dirty Harry tries to keep me in control but does a poor job.

Unsurprisingly we sleep very well indeed.

We make an early start as there is a long journey today. We drive through the town to the beach and then along the seafront. It is cool and cloudy along the coast. The cold Pacific effect.

There are Hansel & Gretel houses and lots of other quirky properties.

We then head off to the Big Sur. The drive does not disappoint. There is magnificent coastal scenery.

We peel off State Route 1 for the two mile narrow road drive to Pfeiffer Beach. Unfortunately it is cloudy, however the tide is out, enabling a walk around to the adjacent bays. It is a pretty special place and worth coming early to avoid the crowds.

Annoyingly, we discover that the road is closed south of Big Sur. We add over an an hour and a half to our already long day and have to retrace our journey all the way back to Monterey and then drive across the Central Valley, which is surprisingly large and completely flat. There is industrial scale irrigation and agriculture. We drive through Castroville – apparently artichoke capital of the world. Who knew? We pass the massive San Luis Reservoir – clearly needed for the intensive crop irrigation.

We head on to Three Rivers and arrive at our hotel at 3ish. The grounds are great, the room rather drab and decorated in shades of dark brown. However, it was a reasonable size and clean with a patio leading out to a nice little pool, where we lazed before heading 10 miles uproad to Exeter for dinner. We ate at Monets where there was a clarinet player and nice ambience. Slightly bizarrely this was bring your cute dog evening and 50% of all wine sales were going to the local dog charity. Fortunately the dogs (and owners) were well behaved. We woke to a beautiful sunny morning and breakfast was quite outstanding; a massive plate of fruit, a choice of pastries – I had the lemon blueberry slice with lemon curd (yummy) and eggs coddled in ham with cherry tomatoes and a pesto dressing. The latter could become an all time breakfast favourite.

After our exceptional breakfast we head up to Kings Canyon to see the giant sequoias. We are advised to take a different route from our chosen one as the road we were going to take is closed due to a landslide. Again we add an hour to the journey time. Kings Canyon is worth the detour. The sequoias are very impressive, you can even walk through the fallen trunk of one…

…and so are the views.

We are unable to drive along the ridge road as it is closed due to snow. This is becoming a common theme! We still enjoy the alternative route.

We wind our way through the mountains and along the Merced River to access Yosemite Park early tomorrow.

It has been a very long drive today, but we understand it will be very busy in the park, so we need to be close by to enter as early as possible. Eventually we make it to Yosemite River View lodge and sit on the balcony with a well deserved bottle of rosé.

We have a long queue at San Francisco airport to collect the hire car. A rush of blood to the head makes us change our sensible SUV for a new white convertible mustang.

Not practical but so much fun!! We cross the Oakland Bay Bridge and arrive at our friends in Oakland at 15.35

It is a lovely sunny afternoon although there is a chilly wind. We drink rosé, have a light supper and try to ignore the eight hour time difference. We also admire the view from the terrace.

The following day is spent exploring San Francisco. We visit Pier 39, which is far too touristy for our liking. Photos below are the more interesting bits.

There are no sea lions but lots of people and commercialised retail. It is not to our taste – but it does have restrooms and a great view of Alcatraz.

The car park is pretty expensive at $10 per hour, but it is convenient for the cable car. We have a long wait before we can board, but there is lots to photograph.

San Francisco really does have very steep hills and I enjoy the whole experience. There are very iconic views.

We drive over the Golden Gate Bridge and make our way to Sausalito for a late lunch. The journey is interesting and on the whole scenic.

We make a complete circuit of the bay and return over Richmond Bridge. There is heavy traffic with some jams and we make some wrong exits from the freeway. The signage is less than helpful! We are happy to chill on the deck with our hosts and be fed and watered with great food and some excellent wine from their vineyard.

After a good night’s sleep we are given a day off from driving. Our friends take us to Sonoma. It is a historic and pretty small town.

The Bear Flag was raised here in 1846 to signify the declaration of freedom of California from Mexican rule.

We visit the barracks and admire the historic houses.

We then visit Bartholomew Vineyard for a walk, picnic and wine-tasting.

We end the day with a tour of Chris and Viv’s little vineyard, which they set up from scratch 10 years ago with friends, building the terracing and planting new vines. In their first year of production they won a California State Fair gold medal. Impressive! We were lucky enough to sample an extensive selection of their wines and they were all really good.

We say a fond farewell to our friends and head south.