Quiet times being back in La Canada (LA) especially after an 8 hour journey in the Chinook (Jill and Joe’s RV) but we pretty much caught up on the blog and packing. We did some exercise and cooked some lovely food for us all 2 nights in a row. On the 2nd November Dave and I ended up leaving the lovely home from home we have adopted and ventured down town LA from Pasadena on the Gold Line Metro to Union Station.

This is something new for us, public transport in LA! It’s such a big city to navigate but there is a good metro system if the destinations suit you! It’s $1.50 for one ticket which is valid for 2 hours of travel and took around half an hour to reach Union Station. We were confused when we arrived, but eventually picked up an area map from the information desk at the main entrance and managed to head in the correct direction towards Pueblo de Los Angeles; a very traditionally Mexican area. We hadn’t quite anticipated so many tourists and school groups to be around and realised The festival of the Dead was also taking place. There is a mini Mexican market and lot’s of authentic Mexican restaurants.

Walking down Main Street we stumbled upon Occupy LA at The City Hall. The Mayor has said they can camp there for as long as they want but we’ve since heard that they’re now trying to think of ways to move them on as the area around the City Hall isn’t holding up so well. Aside from this though there is a very strong presence at Occupy LA and we were invited in by a 19 day occupy resident to take a look around. It’s hard not to and it’s an interesting topic to photograph and observe.

So from the 99% to the 1% we ended up making our way to The Disney Concert Hall of which Frank Gehry who’s exhibition we followed in Beijing was the architect. The Concert Hall offers a bizarre versus beauty in its shape, reflections and form, standing out from any building that surround it. We were pleased to be able to explore the building for free and  enjoy both inside and out without any tours or lots of people around. The garden on the 3rd floor is open for people to use in their lunch break and offers a little abyss away from the city blocks of downtown behind. It’s a pretty cool building to explore if those of you out there venture to downtown LA.

On our way to Little Tokyo we wandered further through Occupy LA before enjoying some sushi on 1st Street opposite the Japanese Plaza. $20 between us in a very authentic Japanese style eatery.

We took the Gold Line back to Pasadena, and later that evening we all enjoyed another lovely family dinner! That night we would move closer to the sea as we were to be reunited with Sarah from Helen’s yoga course. We would be exploring a little more over the next few days!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

We had the car with us for the next two days, and as we had both been ill that week we hadn’t planned to do too much in Phoenix. Our first day saw us drive out to Scottsdale where we enjoyed good sandwiches at The Orange Table next to the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMOCA). When we had finished our lunch we headed into the SMOCA as it is free on Thursdays! It was a good job that the gallery was free that day as we weren’t very impressed by the People’s Biennial exhibit and other installations were in progress so we couldn’t see much further into the museum. They do have a nice outdoor elliptical sky space and some lovely cacti around!

Leaving slightly uninspired we made our way to Tempe to check out ASU and the Art Museum there. Helen had pretty much been raving on about it all morning saying how nice the architecture is there and the museum is really interesting etc. So I think Dave was pretty impressed when we did arrive and go round the museum. Some of the art is perhaps a little too over the top for us, but they do have an anaconda on exhibit there at the moment who has been rescued from its owner and the architecture didn’t disappoint. We explored the campus some more before making our way back to Dave’s and cooking up a lovely fish dinner! Oh to be cooking in a proper kitchen again!

The next morning we were up early and Helen enjoyed an excellent massage from Massage Envy located in the Mayo area. She’s been having some neck pain so it was long anticipated! Dave meanwhile occupied a cafe and edited our imagery! When we left we realised we hadn’t actually had the car booked until friday but it was supposed to go back on Wednesday! Stooooopid! After we rang and explained they just charged us for the extra days rental and  so after a little longer journey to drop the car off (they advertise the drop off as down town Phoenix when it is around 19 miles north of downtown!!) and a taxi to the nearest light rail stop, we eventually took the light rail to downtown. For the rest of the afternoon we stopped at Starbucks and took advantage of wifi use before Dave joined us for a mighty meal at Same’s Cafe in the Arizona Center.

On the 29th October it was Dave’s birthday! WOOOO! Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you! etc! Another birthday overseas, can’t be too bad going for us! This time we enjoyed the company of cousin Dave who took us on a steep hike up Flat Iron’s Rock. The hike took around 5 hours and it was tough in parts, especially if you weren’t used to scrambling up rocks! The views up top were awesome! The descent was harder still because of the steepness so we knew we would be feeling stiff the next day.

When we got back from the hike we enjoyed some home-cooked birthday cake and got ready for a night out in Scotsdale. We ate at A Touch of Thai, where the food was really tasty but the atmosphere was poor. This was followed though by excellent atmosphere and pretty cheap drinks at Dos Gringos. An 80′s famous fancy dress party was taking place and we didn’t quite fit in (not dressed for the occasion) but that didn’t matter!

On the 30th heads were sore and we anticipated the arrival of Jill and Joe, who would be helping us out massively again by bringing us back to LA the next morning. We had a pretty chilled day whilst Joe and Dave tackled some DIY and we walked through some local hills to wake ourselves up a bit. Cheap food at Chuuy’s and we were ready for bed! Thanks to cousin Dave for having us stay!!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

Vegas Vegas Vegas! Where to start? Well firstly if you’re on a budget, which we so definitely are this was a pretty difficult place for us to be! We’re no gamblers, smokers or heavy drinkers! We did though find much to explore and enjoy! We stayed at Circus Circus, mainly because the boys had booked to stay there and they do pretty good rooms at very low prices! For 3 nights our total was just over $100 and we didn’t spend anything other than $2 in their slot machines!

To sum up our time in Vegas we didn’t spend too much time at Circus Circus other than to sleep and we did make use of the gym one morning. We ate pizza there on the first night, but it wasn’t very good! On day two Helen made it to a yoga class taken by Cheryl Slader who was on the same Erich Schiffmann course back in August. She has a donation only yoga studio called Blue Sky Yoga at the Arts Factory closer to down town. The class was a lunchtime one and lasted 45 minutes, so Dave explored the area and got some great shots of interesting buildings and spaces. We then walked to Fremont and got some lunch there whilst taking in some of the lesser known sights of Las Vegas. Fremont is old Vegas and the main street is now under a permanent canopy. We’ve heard this place is better to explore by night. That night we explored the bigger casinos using a 24 hour bus pass that cost $7 each, it goes all the way down the strip and back and covers more routes throughout Vegas. We delved into The Venetian, The Bellagio, MGM Grand and Planet Hollywood.

On day 3 we used the gym, frequented Cheryl’s yoga class again and went to the airport via the bus to pick up our car. We had one booked for a week to take us away from Vegas and eventually land in Phoenix. We had book marked The Bellagio lunch time buffet which had been recommended as the best buffet on the strip. Parking at most casinos is free in the self park, so we parked up and got our $19.99 lunch buffet. The thing is we got in at 3.30pm and at 4pm there is a change to the evening buffet menu, so we started with the lunch time one and ended up on the dinner one! This is a good tip! They do bring out more specialist food and the puddings are fantastic! So here’s what we had – this was between the two of us!

Part 1:
Sushi, potatoe salad, salad Leaves, cous-cous and rice noodles.

Part 2:
Bok-Choi, Shrimp Pizza, fresh shrimp, mini hamburger.

Mains:
Mussels in tomato and basil sauce, potatoes, wild rice, sweet potatoe puree.
Medium rare rump steak, horseradish puree, polenta and herb mash, wild rice, asparagus.

Extras cos they looked fancy:
Crabs legs.

Desserts:
2x panacotta and strawberry top (excellent).
3x creme brûlée (excellent).
1x rocky road (not so good).
1x white chocolate parfait.
1x strawberry tart.
1x custard tart.

So the puddings were all pretty small, like shot-glass size portions! Where we managed to pack it all into we don’t know but it was very good value for money, and with soft drinks included!

After we had a rest from the food we later on met up with the boys at The Saxe Theater located at the back of Planet Hollywood where we had obtained tickets for Vegas, The Show. A friend of Cheryl’s very kindly helped us out with some very low cost tickets to the show courtesy of one of the main performers Joelle Righetti-Jenson. The show was really good fun, quite a tongue and cheek approach to Las Vegas from when it all began. This was the first musical any of the lads had been too!!

Our last night in Vegas so we ventured through a few more of the casinos, enjoyed The Bellagio water fountain show, had a couple of drinks and eventually said our goodbyes to the lads. They were leaving for LA the next day, whilst we were venturing further into National Park territory.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

We started the day with a visit to some very inspiring inspiring exhibitions housed at the SFMOMA and the Contemporary Jewish Museum. Galleries don’t open until 11am-midday in the city so we edited and wrote in a local cafe before getting the bus to the SOMA district where most of the galleries are based. SFMOMA played host to a fantastic photography exhibition called Face Of Our Time featuring 5 photographers’ work surrounding their interest in making pictures about the current condition of our world. One series that stood out for us was And Misrach’s depiction of the graffiti left behind in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

They were also hosting a private viewing of Richard Serra retrospective, closed doors for that one. But another project that definitely drew us in was The Lunch Break Times by Sharon Lockhart, it gave us quite a few ideas for our hopeful exhibition when we return to the UK. We moved on from the SFMOMA and crossed the street to the Contemporary Jewish Museum where an exhibition about the life of Houdini was taking place. This was a really cool exhibition offering us both an insight into a person we knew very little about other than the magic!

So we’d had our morning of art and then it was time to meet the boys and get ready for our Alcatraz tour. We’d booked onto an evening, sunset tour so as the boat set off and we listened to the tour guide describing the evening’s events we also got to enjoy the sun setting over Golden Gate and the Bay area. The tour was presented as an audio tour with a few rangers and guides around to help and answer any questions. There were extra activities and talks taking place throughout the evening making it different from the day tours and the hospital was open too. We learned about the prisoners, those that were famous, those that were deadly dangerous – Robert Birdman being one! And we had a really good experience of the prison as it was. By night everything seemed a little eerie and the evening ended with a description and presentation of the cell doors being slammed. The evening ended back in North Beach at an old favourite Italian bar.

The next day we had quite an easy one starting at our friend the laundrette before heading into Mission and Castro to explore the streets some more. We found a few vintage shops and independent clothing stores and waited for the boys to make an appearance (Dave’s friends that is!) and not the naked men on the streets we bumped into later on! Yes in Castro it’s legal to walk around naked in public as long as they have a flannel to sit on the bus with! So when we strolled around Castro Helen felt like she was out with her gay friends – only girl…4 men! ha ha! We had a few drinks and later on enjoyed a really good Thai meal back on Mission street.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

We had decided that today would be a beach day especially as Barbara had come all the way to sunny California and not been to a beach yet, so this was long overdue! And for us too, we’d been on the go camping and hiking until reaching San Fran so it was good to have a nothing day! We went south to Avila Beach first and lounged on the sand for a good few hours, enjoyed our lunch and walked along the pier. There were a group a ladies on a religious retreat carrying out Baptisims in the sea! It was all pretty full on but they were enjoying themselves immensely. Helen didn’t quite think that they were doing religious baptisms and was surprised when this was confirmed! It was a little awkard when she was asked ‘are you religious’ and to which Helen’s reply was ‘not really no….’ awkward!!

The next beach was Pismo Beach, again coming with a pier (as most Californian beaches do!) although this place was far from the calmness of Avila Bay! It was fairly tacky, very busy and extremely windy! After enjoying a packed ice cream we walked to the sand dunes, Helen left Dave and Barbara to take in the vast sandunes and watch some kite surfing and when reunited the 3 of us went for a drink. That night we ate at a great little restaurant in Cambria called Indigo Moon and we enjoyed some good seafood, meat and vegetarian options! This was our last night in Cambria and we’d really enjoyed our home from home! Plus the hospitality of Jill and Joe – a big thank you to them!

Up fairly early the next day we started making tracks to San Fran. This time instead of the 1 we opted for Highway 101 as it was way quicker! We had one stop for lunch and the sun was with us all the way to San Francisco and when we arrived we drove over the Golden Gate to the Marin Headlands where the HI was welcoming us! Although there was a bit boat race taking place so it was rammed with cars and roads were closed meaning it took us an hour longer! When we checked into the old barrack’s style accommodation we drove to Sausilito on the west side of the bay. Sausilito is a little Italy, with lots of boutiques, a harbour of expensive boats and packed out Italian restaurants and bistros! Very swish! We walked along the path to take in the views looking back toward the San Francisco skyline before enjoying our own Italian feast at Roma.

On the way back to our hostel for the evening we stopped at a vantage point to get some night views of the bridge. This is well worth doing especially if it is a clear evening as the view of the bridge is pretty spectacular.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

We got up and spent a good part of the morning sorting out the car, making sure our bags weren’t quite so spread out as Barbara (Dave’s mum) would be joining us for a week from here on. The first part of the day was spent touring back into Point Reyes and out to the lighthouse, where many tourists adventure to. There were quite a few bird watchers on tour so we had to battle a little for the views but not as many people take the 300 steps down to the lighthouse so it was much quieter down there. A humpback whale had been spotted just before we’d arrived but there were no sightings for us. There are lots of rare birds around that area though and the sky was very clear too which is unusual for a mainly foggy  area.

The lighthouse is no longer in use and is a good spot to view from. The steps back up are not quite as enjoyable though but what is pretty unique about this area is that when you’re in Point Reyes you’re also standing on a different tectonic plate. So instead of being on the North American Plate we were standing on the Pacific Plate! You can see the area of land that was formed and ripped apart by the San Andreas Fault.

Moving onwards the road trip continued along Highway 1 taking in some amazing coastal views eventually coming out of the Waldo Tunnel to an amazing view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Before we picked up Dave’s mother for a family road trip, we decided that we should get the car back in tip-top condition, it was rather dirty on the outside as well as inside. Much fast paced fun was to be had at the self-service car wash, even though we managed to miss large patches of dirt on the outside

Upon meeting up with Barbara in the Cow Hollow district we headed out for our first taste of San Francisco walking up Lombard Street towards the famous eight tight hairpin turns which we would try to drive down the following morning. Onwards to Fisherman’s wharf for tacky tourist shops and hoards of tourists where we visited a recommended fish restaurant. The food wasn’t particularly refined but tasted fresh and wasn’t too expensive. Back to the hotel room for an early night ready to head south on the coast tomorrow.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

We journeyed off down the 1 to Point Reyes National Seashore about an hour north of San Francisco. The drive down was once again very scenic and rugged, so with a few stops along the way we made our way to The Samuel P Taylor State Park to find a camping spot, the main problem being that it was the weekend and the campground was already full with more San Francisco weekend holidayers! We knew of one other campground in the area called the Olema RV resort and after a quick call we learned that camping spots were available, at an all time high of $42/night! It was a very well equipped campground and we found a spot amongst many campers, which made a change for us!

We ventured out to Point Reyes Station, a small village up the road from us where a farmers market had been taking place. It was still pretty busy when we arrived and so we walked around the village and chatted to a local photographer about his work in his little studio on the main street. After picking up some maps at the visitors Information in Bear Valley we decided to drive out to do a hike out to the most northern point in the area. There were a good few historic ranches along the way and we parked right by one of the oldest ranches in the area called Pierce Point which is open to walk around. From there the path heads out into the marsh-like landscape, it felt very much like the Scottish Highlands and wild Elk accompanied us along the way.

We didn’t manage enough time to fit in the whole walk out to the furthest point as it was getting dark but we did cover around 6 miles on the trip. At the end of the walk we drove down to McClures Beach where the photographer had talked about the rocks he’d been photographing. We took the path down to the beach watching and photographing the sun go down. The waves were immense and the sky was angry but we had an amazing sunset and there were only 3 other people on the stretch of the entire beach the whole time we were there. More amazing views for us!

We got back to the campsite when it was dark, prepared a stella meal and then proceeded to sit in the laundrette to do some washing and work indoors for a bit. We won’t miss these laundrettes!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

After a fairly lazy start to the day, we packed up the tent and all the gear as usual into the car, said goodbye to Don, (who kindly offered his phone number and details in-case we were back in the San Francisco area once he had returned from his very own road-trip, to stay at his ranch north of SF) and we were back onto the highway aiming for Healdsburg for wine tasting.

The Lonely Planet USA guide had some recommendations so we popped into the local information center for maps and a bit more info. We wanted to hire bikes to ride to the vineyards however upon closer inspection the bike hire was $10 per hour and it would be an all day ride; very expensive little town, but very nice. We decided to drive rather than cycle.

The first stop was Bella Vineyard which has wine tasting in a cave, not sure if this is natural or man made, but it made for some nice cool air and rather swanky surroundings, this would be a great place for a celebration. The wine tasting here was $10 per person for 6 samples but we actually ended up with 7 with the Chardonnay and Pino-noir our two favourites!

The next stop was Porter Creek vineyards. This was a small little hut next to the owners house and they had a massive dog in the doorway named Diego who was very friendly and welcoming. Here it was $5 per person, so we shared the samples to save some money and not get a DUI from the highway patrol! All in all Healdsburg is a lovely place to go wine tasting. There are loads of different places to go, with quite a few offering free samples. We would highly recommend the area, but it is on the pricey side.

We decided that it would be too expensive to stay in the Healdsburg area so we re-joined Highway 1 and made our way to the coast and camped at Stillwater cove. This was taking us north for a few miles but we didn’t mind. We only just got a pitch at the camp site as this seems to be where the locals from SF come for their weekend getaways! $28 for a camp spot, oh how we miss the days of Oregon and their subsidised camp grounds at $12.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

We got up early and went south to Fort Bragg, this was our first drive on Highway 1, a route we would now be taking on and off for the next few weeks. It wasn’t a long journey at all and we were in the MacKerricher State Park campground at around 11.30am setting up our tent and enjoying lunch. For the rest of the day we walked out along the beachfront which was very windy and the sea was once again very wild. There was a loop at the top northern point of the park that took us out along a boardwalk to a couple of viewing areas. The top one was very open and we could see Harbour Seals splashing around in the waves, it wasn’t easy for them but there were quite a few watching us bobbing their heads up and down in the water, there were also many Osprey circling around above.

Later in the afternoon we drove down to Mendocino, a popular weekend resort for San Francisco vacationers. It’s a pretty nice town although when we got there it was covered in fog. Most places appeared to be closed but there were some good organic shops and markets open as well as a few art galleries. The architecture dates back to mid 1800′s and it’s a really well maintained town, nice wooden beach houses and interesting water towers dotted along the streets. It wasn’t exactly sunbathing weather so we bought a few items for dinner from the Harvest Market and along with a bottle of wine, went back to camp, lit a fire and enjoyed the company of our San Francisco resident neighbour Don.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

After another night in the cozy shed we showered and had breakfast in the usual fashion. We advised Janine regarding some website tips and ways of saving money by doing a website yourself rather than an expensive template etc. Helen offered to take some photos for the new website / promo materials so we headed out into the woods with a homemade reflector and did a spot of photography which was great fun.

After all the excitement in the woods we Skyped home to the Roscoe household and then headed out into the town for a look around during the day. It’s a great little town and worthy of a visit for a day or so. It felt as if it had lost some of it’s hippy charm, but enough has remained to be enchanting enough with coffee shops and yoga rooms aplenty.

There is a nice Yoga place which we visited called the Om Shala Yoga centre which has a sauna, showers and a nice room to take a class. We took advantage of all three. Another recommendation is the Three Foods Cafe which did have a 20 minute wait for a table as it was very busy. The food is a little pricey for the budget conscious traveller but the food is interesting and pretty tasty. The “hurts so good.” (Korean style grass fed sirloin and veggies served over a bed of coconut milk rice, topped with frizzled leaks and a side of fresh kimchi) at $14 was very tasty, only downside was the rice lacked coconut flavor.

There was some confusion over the menu as we were not sure what Linguiça was. (“Satchmo.” Spicy linguica, sweet prawns and green beans over cheesy grits, drizzled with a cajun butter sauce $14) We should have inquired when someone is pescatarian but failed to do so and ended up with a spicy sausage (think Chorizo). Oops. They were kind enough to swap it over for extra veggies instead of the sausage, but Helen didn’t enjoy hers as much as everyone else the whole meal was just too sweet.

American cuisine is moving with the times and embracing other worldly foods, from our experience here though they just haven’t cracked it yet… for our taste-buds anyway!

The following day Janine invited both of us to join a small yoga class with her and two others at her house before breakfast at 7.30am. It was a really nice start to the day and after breakfast we packed up and headed south, back in the car for the first time in two days!

Todays destination was the Lost Coast and to find a lovely campsite somewhere. We’ve been using AAA guide camp books thanks to Helen’s Aunt Jill so we’ve never really struggled to find a decent site. We do often pass by privately owned RV sites too which can sometimes be an alternative. So back to the Lost Coast! We started the drive from Ferndale which is a town that looks pretty much as it did in the late 1800′s, it was a pretty sleepy place when we passed through and we weren’t too impressed by our grocery bill! From Ferndale there is a road that takes you upwards and through some more forest areas eventually coming out in ranch territory at Petrolia. It’s an 80 mile stretch of rugged shoreline, sometimes in the fog, sometimes with clear views. There are epic hiking trails along this part of the coastline too, and the towns are more like Hamlets, often with a mild stench of Marijuana lingering in the air. We took the route through Honeydew and then into the Humboldt Redwood Park, getting further along the Lost Coast at this point requires a four wheel drive.

The drive took a couple of hours as we stopped a few times to photograph but we didn’t really encounter that many cars until we came into the Redwood Forest. The Humboldt  Forest is supposed to be the most impressive of the Redwood areas in Northern California. We came into The Big Tree area located after Albee Campground and walked through some of the tallest and widest trees in the world. It was a little like being in a giant children’s playground. Further into the park is The Avenue of the Giants, which is a good drive and again you can stop off along the way to stare in awe at these massive trees, some of which stand at around 370ft and 26ft in diameter. This is definitely the route to take rather than the 101.

We decided to continue driving further and eventually set up camp in The Richardson Grove State Park, having seen that some of the earlier parks were closed (this is currently a problem in California). The park wasn’t great to be honest but other campers were setting up and there were toilets and wash facilities. We noticed that camping in California was considerably more than the Washington and Oregon equivalents. We camped among more redwoods for the night.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)