Beginning at Manhattan on the west coast

Los Angeles Sunday Sept 10, 2017
A top day, sunny and amazingly clear and on a Sunday you can travel this giant metropolis just as you would using Google maps at home. Santa Monica Pier, Venice Beach and the canals, Sunset Blvd, Rodeo Drive, Wilshire Blvd and lunch on Montana Drive. Top shelf.

On the road Monday Sept 11, 2017
We began in earnest our drive up the Californian coast stopping off at Santa Monica at the Pacific Palasades overlooking the beach and pier, followed with a speedy drive along Malibu Beach. Bette Midler singing “You are the wings beneath my feet” must have been dubbed for the movie for all the 6 lanes of traffic would certainly drowned her out. Malibu is crammed with 2 storey ticky-tacky homes and low rise apartments fronting the beach—but how they ever sleep is anyone’s guess.
Santa Barbara was next on our list and a place we’d like to spend a lot more time but while we enjoyed a late lunch at the downtown Hofbräuhaus the Monday night motel prices escalated to the absolute ridiculousness, so we hot- footed it inland to Santa Maria. Great mountainous scenery all denuded of trees and presenting like a post summer ‘beige’ landscape.

Tuesday:
Rusty and Martha Bolton are friends of ours from 50 years ago in Perth and they happened to now live in Visalia which is en route to the redwood forest…..our next destination. We took them to lunch and got the local low down on Sequoia national park ready for the following day.

Rusty and Martha Bolton –just as we fondly remember them.

Trouble hugging a tree this size. It has been standing on this site since Jesus was on earth or even perhaps as far back as the pyramids.

Wednesday:
It was an all-day affair gawking at the giant redwood trees, driving thru winding forest roads and like every tourist destination in the US besieged by legions of locals let alone imported tourists;; but not so on this mid-week occasion. Our pics will tell the story of the forest.
But our being duped by a very credible bloke of about 50 or so must be told. The biggest tree General Sherman lives down a steep winding pathway about a couple of kilometres from the carpark. Along the way there are plenty of seats for puffing seniors to rest as they make their arduous way back up to their cars. Admiring the general this bloke happened to mention that if we simply continued a further couple of hundred metres down the track they have a shuttle bus to take the elderly like me back up to the top carpark. “You’re kidding me” I retorted…….” “No, no, no” the guy feigned “that’s the dinkum truth”
A further 200metres down the track we came upon a small carpark—-but definitely no shuttle!
But parked in a no standing zone was a big white Dodge SUV, engine idling. I approached the driver with his colourful bandanna on, to thumb a lift up the road. “No speaka de English” he said and planted his foot to take off. “Stop, stop, stop I shouted, wishing to apologise for alarming him. With the kerfuffle another bloke (who incidentally spoke English) arrived on the scene to sort this matter out. Turns out they are Polish and happy to give a couple of Aussies a lift back to the carpark—-right up to our vehicle. We thanked them profusely and in matter of 10 minutes we were seated at a brilliant restaurant in the woods some three k’ms down the road
It was reported the next day that a middle aged man had suffered a heart attack climbing the pathway to the carpark and was medivac’d to a local hospital.

View of the forest from our table at the restaurant in Sequoia national park after thumbing a lift

Yosemite pics below

Thursday:
Yosemite beckoned from our overnight stay in Fresno with another quite brilliant sunny day. More winding roads perfected for tourists to take every advantage of getting pictures at all the ‘turnout’ off-road parking spots. Unique granite peaks form mountainous scenery around every corner. Like El Capitan a 3,000 foot high sheer granite wall that beggars belief. The pics will tell a better story.
And as you do, we lunched at the cafeteria with some folks from Wisconsin and Las Vegas. In the late afternoon we made our way to a little country town of Merced and stayed in a broken down motel I swear was run by a lady called Norma Bates.

Friday:
It was back to the coast for us to continue the Pacific coast adventure and we landed in Santa Clara, dropping off for a bag of embroidery silk threads in Alameda and a look at the new Apple building which houses 22,000 staff in Cupertino ( but it will be a couple of months before the visitor centre is open) so we visited the old Apple premises at Infinite Lane.
The chauffeur took up the offer of a weekend off and so we booked a little motel for 3 nights.

Isabel’s day; silk threads from an Aladdins Embroidery cave in Alameda to the Apple shop in Cupertino

Saturday:
Got a sleep-in to 7.15 showered and breakfasted before driving Miss Isabel to Carmel by the Sea and thence southward to San Simeon and the Big Sur. this being the first day the sun was hidden behind a rolling sea fog for most of the day. So instead of a ‘wow’ around every corner we lamented the weather had robbed us of that’W’ factor.
We did spend idling time at a brilliant restaurant over the ocean waiting for the sun to burn off the cloud and fog. Strangely the pics aren’t bad with the iPhone UV filters cutting thru.