Hello everybody I hope you are all well. Its blog o clock again.

When I left you last I had had a rather unsuccessful day at the Grand Canyon, I got so close, I could almost smell it, but alas they were just teasing me. I didn't get the chance to return so that is something that remains un ticked on the to do list, although it did enable me to have a cheeky ride on the famous route 66, and a little peek at Arizona. The following day I had my bus booked back to LA in the afternoon, yes the good old $20 deal again. In the morning I went for another look around downtown Las Vegas by foot. This is where the majority of the wedding chapels are, I was lucky enough to witness a drive through wedding, yes can you believe it you can drive up to a window and get married in your car. I always joked about having to remain sober in Las Vegas just in case I awoke one morning as a Mrs as appose to Miss, try explaining that one. So, mum, what happened right is, I had been out for a few vinos, got peckish on my way home and honestly I had ordered a burger at that window but somehow, anyway meet Brett, he will look a lot better after a bath and once he's shaved all off that facial hair!

They have a slightly chavier version of the main strip downtown, it is certainly a lot more affordable. Anyway after a good look around I got on the bus and was back in LA that evening. Walking from the bus stop to the metro made me realise there are a lot of lunatics in this country. It really would make a refreshing change to be able to walk down the street without my fellow pedestrians talking to themselves, trying to sell me something, asking me to sell something, hurling abuse at me, trying to be my friend or asking me for money - LEAVE ME ALONE!

Rant over, let me tell you what else I've been up to, its been such fun. San Francisco is a city I definitely wanted to visit, and I looked into getting a bus there which would take me on an inland route. After a bit of consideration, I decided I really wanted to go the coastal route so decided to hire a car in LA, drive it up to San Francisco and then drop it off there. The morning I went to pick up the car I am not going to deny I was a little nervous. I had never driven on the right hand side of the road, let alone in Los Angeles, but really I've thrown myself off a bridge I'm sure I can handle a bit of traffic. Upon arrival at the rental place I was informed that they had run out of small cars, looking around I spied a rather exciting looking convertible, now that would make for a good road trip. I was just about to put forward the suggestion of me taking that off their hands for a couple of days when they announced I would be the proud driver of a Chevrolet something or other, it was not the most aesthetically pleasing car, I referred to it as the box, well lets face it, it wasn't going to get a young lady cruising around Beverly Hills much attention! Having said that, looks aren't everything and for once I had a mode of transport that didn't break down on me or huff and puff up the hills, (a very windy and steep road was involved in this trip but I'll fill you in on that in a bit). Now this drive is actually only about 340 miles and can be done in a very long day, or comfortably in two, so you may be wondering why I had hired it for 4 days. Well I really wanted to enjoy the journey, stopping off at small towns for a spot of lunch and tourist attractions, and lets face it, what with my problem with the camera at the moment there would inevitably be numerous stops along the way. So all paperwork completed I got in the car. The man asked me if I needed any assistance driving it, short of being my chauffer I explained I would be absolutely fine once I got used to driving on the right hand side of the road, with a nervous laugh, a worried look he bid me farewell and wished me luck.

Now you see I didn't actually have a proper map to guide me out of LA, I just had the hop on hop off bus map I had kept, probably not the most appropriate navigation equipment I could have selected but it was all I had so it would have to suffice. I was heading for Highway 1, that is the main coastal road where I would experience the spectacular views, now just a small matter of getting to it. Actually, not a problem, red tourist bus route through Hollywood and yellow tourist bus route through Beverly Hills to Santa Monica where I met the highway. Not even the road closure due to works on Hollywood Boulevard deterred me, what with my newly acquired local knowledge of the area, zip a left here and a nifty right there, excellent back on track! Needless to say I actually quite enjoyed myself, had I been in that convertible though it would have been fantastic, although in reality the hair would not have coped well at all.

Oh now this was more like it, you know how I do enjoy leaving a city behind and feeling the freedom of the countryside unravelling before me. The views were amazing, the sun was out, the sky a bright blue, matching the ocean to my left, and after a short battle with the radio some relatively cheesy tunes playing. The first day I stopped at a small fishing yet touristy town called Morro Bay. Now this was the type of town I wanted to experience, it was beautiful with its small boutiques and unique restaurants, no fast food chains here. With the sound of the sea lions echoing around the bay and the stunning bright pink sunset filling the sky I walked along the waters edge feeling very much in my happy place.

The towns along the west coast here are not really geared up for backpackers and there are no hostels, but plenty of campsites for those with their vans. I stayed in motels for these few nights, the first one at Morro Bay, and I'd like to add the nicest one, was very reasonably priced, only an extra $10 than what I would pay for a 6 bed dorm in a hostel. The further north I got however the more expensive they became, it was only for a few days so not too much of a problem. It did however make me realise that, although more often than not people complain about them, without hostels and their cheap dorm room facilities, many people would not be able afford to do the amount of travelling they actually do. So to all you hostels out there, thank you for making it possible for us backpackers to go on our international explorations.

The following day I completed a short 30 minute drive further north near a place called San Simeon, before stopping to have a look around Hearst Castle. This stood proudly at the very top of a mountain, and was named by the owner 'La Cuesta Encantada', meaning 'The Enchanted Slope', very aptly named in my opinion, I was certainly caught in its spell. It was owned and built by a man named William Randolph Hearst, if I am going to be perfectly honest I hadn't actually heard of him before, but by all accounts, already born into wealth, he was very successful in his own right publishing newspapers and continuing to run the family ranch. During my time there I learnt that he passed away on August 14th (my birthday), and his great granddaughter is called Lydia, well completely inconsequential but I thought I'd just add that. Despite all of his success, it is reported that William Hearst was at his happiest designing and building this castle, it took 28 years and as it stands today it is still incomplete. As a boy he spent a year with his mother travelling around the world, this had obviously had an effect on him and a lot of the palace features are what he took away from this trip. It is just a beautiful place. It was donated by the Hearst Corporation to the state of California, but remains exactly the same as the last time William Hearst was there. I love looking around places like this where all of the original furniture and décor remains, you get a real sense of how it was to live there. William Hearst moved in high social circles and regular weekend visitors to the palace included Charlie Chaplain and Clark Gable. You could imagine them having their fine meals followed by singing and dancing, it is such a romantic place, I think I will always remember that castle.

After a thoroughly enjoyable look around it was time to get back in the box and venture further up the coast. The scenery kept getting better and better, I had entered a region known as Big Sur, here it was at its best. The rocks jutting out and standing tall appeared so strong against the powerful ocean crashing against it. I was happily driving and singing along, planning to stay at one of the coastal towns that evening when I decided to stop for a snack break. It was here that a lady informed me that the road was closed about 15 miles up the coast and wouldn't reopen until Monday, today was Friday! Due to the nature of this road being alone running up the coast, I couldn't just get off at one exit and rejoin it a couple of junctions later. I had two choices, go back the way I had come and join the freeway or carry on another couple of miles and take a small windy and steep road over the mountain. The whole point of me hiring the car was because I wanted to go the scenic route so over the mountain won. It was quite a hairy route, often very narrow and not much space between the box and the sheer drop off the side of the cliff, however if it was a scenic route I was after, it was certainly what I got, I was almost pleased the road was closed, that is until I saw the town that I was to stay in that evening, Greenfield, there definitely wasn't anything quaint about that.

The next morning after consulting a map, I saw that I could join the freeway from this town, or take another small road back over the mountain, rejoining highway 1 and side stepping the closure, I think we can all guess which route I chose. Back over that mountain I went. The road was not quite as treacherous as the one the previous evening, a little wider and the bends not so sharp. The scenery was very different as well, there were numerous vineyards here and ranches (oh yes, they are not farms to me anymore, no ranches!) I was also back in the land of lovely small towns again, with their local stores and coffee shops, the men here even wore cowboy hats. I made it over the mountain and rejoined my original highway 1 at a town called Carmel. I did back track down highway 1 a couple of the miles I had missed and I think you'll agree from the photos that they were definitely worth the detour. That day I had nearly reached San Francisco, just a few more small seaside towns one of which I was planning to stay in that night. Change of plan, due to them being seaside towns and so close to the city, they were also quite expensive and more than my budget would allow, so I headed further to the outskirts of San Francisco where the accommodation was cheaper. there were no enjoyable coastal walks that evening.

This was Saturday evening and I didn't have to return the box until Monday morning in San Francisco so with my spare day I was going to head through San Francisco without stopping and go to the Napa Valley and visit a few wineries. I had a wonderful day here however I must say touring vineyards whilst driving is a travesty! Between the town Napa and Calistoga is a 34 mile road called the Silverado Trail, along here are the entrances to at least 70 vineyards. I couldn't help but wonder how many drivers in the cars driving along this same road were over the limit.

It was Monday morning, time to head back to San Francisco and find my way to downtown to bid farewell to the box, more navigating to do. I don't know what it is about American cities but I seem to drive around them remarkably well. The same can not be said for Australian cities, every time I got in Arthur, even if it was just to pop down the road, I would come home hours later after getting completely lost. One thing I have found in America both driving and as a pedestrian is that it is generally the pedestrians who have the right of way. If there is a junction with no signals or crossing the car always lets the person on foot cross first. Well I'm presuming that's different from home, maybe I've been driving incorrectly all these years and have left a trail of fist clenching, swearing walkers behind me as I drive through making them wait for me to pass in my car.

A new city and a new hop on hop off bus tour, did I mention I also did one in Las Vegas? I just did the one day ticket here as the city is not as spread out as Los Angeles, so if I didn't get off during the bus tour I would easily be able to revisit places on foot. San Francisco has such a wonderful feel to it, I love this city, it is how I imagined American cities to be before arriving here. What with its 24hour diners, dimly lit bars, trams, the pier and the beautiful houses which are so highly decorated on the outside they are called the 'painted ladies'. I was lucky enough to go past Alamo Square on the bus and get a picture of the 6 famous houses with the city skyline behind them, featured in many San Francisco postcards. I went for a walk around some of the streets to look at the houses, I love the architecture, they are all so individual. The really fancy houses were up some extremely steep hills, I was practically on all fours crawling up by the time I reached the top, but you know I would do that every day to live in a house like one of those, and besides, that would have to be even better for toning the thighs than the acrobatics I carried out in the Thai toilets all that time ago. Once at the top you looked down on the whole of the city. San Francisco also has lots of various areas, Chinatown, this was my first stop on day one, I had a craving for some Chinese food. It was a particularly cold day so I went to one of the restaurants in Chinatown and ordered some hot and sour soup. You would think this very ordinary, but it was delicious, I left my belly full and warm and my lips still tingling from the spice. There is also an Italian suburb, with its streets are lined with authentic Italian restaurants, the pier where lots of sea lions can be seen lounging around I will warn you though they are extremely smelly and there is Haight Street, this is the hippy area which became well known in the 60s during the summer of love.

The highlight of the bus tour was going out to the golden gate bridge, I had had some teasing glimpses of it between buildings, but not as yet seen it in its full glory. It really is a rather large construction and I am not going to tell you how many photos I took of it through sheer embarrassment. This definitely warranted getting off the bus and walking across it. It is 1.7 miles in length, and as I walked across the bridge and put my hand on the rail the whole thing shook. Obviously the views were incredible from there.

After an exhausting day sightseeing I returned to my hostel. Now I really feel that I need to tell you about this place because I find it all rather amusing. Firstly the communal areas are all very modern and clean, my initial impressions were very positive, that is until I went into my room, so gross and dirty, so much so I'm using my sleeping bag instead of their provided sheets. Anyway, that obviously is not the funny part. On check in I was informed that there is free beer every night in the hostel at 9.30pm, that's a new one. I had no other plans so at 9.30pm headed towards the bar, well you were not likely to forget what with the 9.30pm beer siren going off. There were a few of us and we gathered around commenting on how this was rather strange. Then Eric the Vietnamese manager came on stage and proceeded to give us a speech, frequently mentioning Budweiser beer and Smirnoff vodka, the reason for this being they sponsor the hostel and provide them with the free alcohol, oh yes we were also having vodka by all accounts. Eric continued to emphasise the importance of us completing our review of the hostel when we leave and mentioning that we got the free beer and vodka 7 days a week, he was absolutely intent on keeping his 'biggest party hostel in America' status. He mentioned that he knows its not the cleanest hostel (you think?), but so long as it's the most fun that's all ok. So we were going to go downstairs to the night club area, this consisted of a dance floor, similar to those I used to have at my school discos, a pool table, a poker room and wait for it, a 'making out' room! No, I don't think I'm staying in a brothel, just the best party hostel. It was all very amusing as Eric tried to ply us with as much beer and vodka as possible, I will admit it was a good way to meet people, but lets face it anyone is going to get on after free beer and vodka, I must say quite a unique and weird experience.

I went to Alcatraz today, or as some may call it The Rock. I had really wanted to go on the evening tour but this was completely booked out for the month and its not even peak season, so I went at midday. We took the ferry over to the island, I could feel my anticipation mounting the closer we became. The tour consisted of the ferry ride there and back and an audio tour of the cell house, we were then able to spend as long as we liked on the island looking around the other buildings. People on average tend to spend about 2 hours there before catching the return ferry, obviously I was there for 4 hours and only then got the ferry back because my camera battery was and I quote what came up on the screen 'exhausted!'. The cell house was at the top of the hill on the island, below it and not too far away from it was where the wardens and their families lived. They had a block of apartments on the island, the children got the ferry to San Francisco each day to go to school, the wives also got the ferry to the city to go shopping and meet their friends and as families they would leave the island for excursions. They were always very careful to ensure that the inmates were never seen by the children, when new ones arrived they would make sure they were brought onto the island when the children were at school or at night. Obviously the children knew they were there, and if there was ever a raucous in the prison it could be heard from these residential apartments.

It was very surprising to me to learn of the crimes the inmates were convicted of. I always believed it was the worst of the worst that were sent to Alcatraz, however many of the crimes committed were robberies and tax evasions. There were those that had done horrendous acts of murder but not all. The people sent to Alcatraz were those that continuously broke the rules in regular prisons or had committed federal crimes, crimes committed on a more national level as oppose to being confined to one state.

Now I consider myself to be very lucky on my trip to Alcatraz as I received a bit of VIP treatment. I was having a look around the old warehouse where the inmates had jobs, and was talking to one of the staff members that works there, when she said that she was showing a couple, he who is currently working as a prison officer, around the hospital area and would I like to join them, well of course I would. I am unsure as to why this area was not open to the public, but it was extremely interesting. There was an operating room with the old operating table, a ward set up with all of the old fashioned equipment, a hypothermic room and Hollywood blood splattered over the ceiling of one of the rooms remaining from the filming of one of the final scenes in a film. It was also here in this room where Robert Stroud, aka 'Birdman', spent his years as he was too disruptive to be in the main cells, even in the isolation of D block. The really bad criminals went to D block where they were only let out once a week for a shower and a walk around the recreation area, and if you were still really naughty you got put in the 'black hole', inmates remained here no longer than 19 days, believe me not a nice place. It was also very interesting to hear the mans accounts of working in prisons today and the comparisons to Alcatraz.

Outside there is a recreation area, if you climb to the top of the bleachers there is a wonderful view of the city of San Francisco. Many prisoners would sit up here and look at the city which must have represented such close freedom, yet so far away. I couldn't help but try and imagine what was going through their minds as they would sit up there, but I don't think my mind has much in common with that of a murderer so I couldn't imagine. We could also look around the old dining room, apparently the food was very good here, the wardens would eat the same food as the inmates and it was important to take care to have high standards of presentation when delivering the meals. Other areas we looked around was the library, the wardens office and the officers area. Thoroughly interesting afternoon, I have some films now on my hard drive thanks to Kazz in New Zealand, one of them is 'Escape to Alcatraz', I think I will have to have a watch of that again.

After getting off the ferry I went to the well established Boudin Bakery and enjoyed their signature dish to warm up. A sourdough round roll with the middle hollowed out and filled with chilli, soup or clam chowder, I opted for the chilli, very enjoyable. They say the bread is never the same no two days as it all depends on the winds blowing in from the pacific ocean that affects the yeast.

Well I am off out to sample some of San Francisco's finest bars now, I'm sorry Eric, but I'm going to have to give your vodka and make out room a miss tonight.

Lots of love as always. Until next time. x