Americanuck

Yesterday we made our way up to San Francisco for the day as Sean was feeling better. We weren’t able to visit Alcatraz as it turns out because the tickets this time of year seem to need to be booked in advance. I guess it’s because it isn’t the high season yet? The kids were a little bit disappointed, but were ok with it.

We visited Pier.. ummm what is it again?

(like anyone could forget! It is on everything!)

Stood in front of Alcatraz in the wind tunnel and took some snapshots

(My hair was so tangled after this!)

(How touristy do they look?)

Watched the Sea Lions fight a floaty territorial war ..

….then had lunch at the Bubba Gump restaurant. While we were waiting for our seats Tom did his best Forrest impression..

After lunch we hit up some of the touristy shops. I bought more fridge magnets to add to my collection (yeah I’m lame) and picked up an Alcatraz Sweatshirt while I was at it. Chris wanted to go to this memorabilia shop that has all kinds of autographed items and he ended up buying a signed picture of Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) in the “gold bikini” (rolls eyes).

I FINALLY got to get up to Haight-Ashbury to get my shot of the street signs. Tom had to drop me off and drive around the block to do it as there wasn’t any parking in the area, and what little there was was metered and we were without quarters. The area reminds me a wee bit of some of the seedier areas around Vancouver so I was kind of glad the boys jumped out with me. I quickly popped into shop and picked up a sweatshirt and tank top. Yay!

We got back in time to catch the last sunset of our trip (sigh)

We had pizza from the Village Host Pizza parlor (HIGHLY recommended!) and stuffed ourselves sick with it. It has to hold us over cos we sure don’t have pizza places that make anywhere decent pizza near us. I caught the boys in the middle of their initial bites in this photo… each of them has the weirdest expression (heh)

We had the sliding door open to catch the last chance wave sounds and Tom got a wee bit chilly. He ended up throwing on one of the robes in our closet and voila.. what an outfit!

This morning we made sure we were up in time to have some coffee, pack up our shit and then go for one last walk on the beach.

Here is my booty… yeah baby I did alright!

We had some time to kill before we headed up to San Jose to our hotel closer to the airport so we did some driving around, first through Capitola then around Santa Cruz. We didn’t feel like trying to find parking (it’s a holiday weekend so all the locals were out and about today) so we just stuck with cruising around.

We did one more dinner at an In-N-Out (which just so happens to be right near out hotel, how cool is that?) and then Tom returned the rental car. We’re catching the shuttle early in the am to the airport.

Right now I’m uploading the remainder of my pictures to Flickr and writing this from upon the hotel bed.

Damn what a nice time we had (apart from Sean’s little bout of food poisoning). We really didn’t want to leave! Now were sitting here in San Jose I’m ready to go home and get our cats out of jail. I’m sure they are gonna be nice and skitzy!

Our flight leaves some time around 9:30 and then we’ve got that lovely drive from Seattle and then the border to deal with. Talk atcha from back home!

The night before last we had made a run to the Red Lobster for dinner, yesterday Sean made a run for the toilet. He ended up with some kind of stomach thing which lasted pretty much all of yesterday and hit the worst last night when he got to see a re-run of his dinner in a technicolour burp. It was In-n-out too! What a waste! (J/K poor kid!) Not sayin’ that the upset stomach and the dinner were related but..

Chris had a big ass pile of crab legs and it was pretty amusing watching him try to figure out how to get to the meat.

Yesterday had started alright, we went for a drive to check out some Ross (aka monkey) stores and a Macy’s in a near by towns (lousy selection once again at Ross I’m afraid, I did better at Macy’s). On the way we stopped off at the collectible military store that Chris fell in love with last year. We waited, and we waited, and man we waited some more.

He finally came out with a couple of compasses, one WWI era and one WWII and a big smile on his face. As far as he’s concerned the trip is a success.

Here are the boys at In-n-Out in between Sean’s bouts of “I’m not feeling good”. Eating again was a BAAAD idea as it turns out.

Thankfully after resting most of today and infusing him with salts and sugars (and expelling whatever it was that was taking root REPEATEDLY) he is feeling better tonight and it looks like we will be able to make our run to San Fran tomorrow.

Oh yeah, and this morning Tom pointed out some dolphins swimming by. I took a picture..(not to change subjects or anything)

Ok you will have to click on the original size to even have a clue where to find the dolphin fins but trust me, those dark spots are dolphins!

Tom and I went to the store to pick up some more water, some more Immodium (just in case) and some Gatoraid. As we were out anyway (grin) we stopped at another Ross, this one in Santa Cruz. This one was a lot less picked over and I managed to walk out with a few really cute tops and my sanity (there were no families with screaming brats in this one, just some really overly coiffed ladies who lunch types). We also went to the Cost Plus World Market (which is a really cool store wish there is one closer to us). During our drive we kind of accidentally discovered a really cute little seaside area in Capitola. It has some lovely little shops and a really nice beach-side area. We’re going to try and make a point of going back through there to have a look round if we can.

We had take-out dinner from the local Chinese place which was eh..and then waited on the balcony for another spectacular sunset.

As usual it didn’t disappoint!

Well we’re in the home stretch! We’ve cleaned the house, the cats are in jail (aka the V.E.T for boarding) and we’re mostly packed.  Now it’s about time to hop in the shower to be ready to leave at the crack of dawn for the border. We’re flying out of Seattle (as it a WAY better deal out of that airport than Vancouver) and hopefully won’t face a huge line there. Even if we do we’ve got that factored in for time. We’re hoping the border is a breeze and then we can spend time having a nice leisurely breakfast instead of a mad dash for the airport. Here’s hoping.

Oh and yanno how I thought I had something bad happening leak-wise in my car last summer? Well I noticed there was a small spread out pool of something kind of greasy under my car. It’s hard to tell the colour because it was on dirty concrete but it smelled kind of oily, though a bit different from what I sniffed off my dipstick. So I’ve stuck some cardboard under the car to catch whatever may drip in the week we’re gone which should help the mechanic figure out what the hell it is.  I was so choked cos first of all I panic when something goes wrong with my car and second the timing SUCKS because there is no way to take it in until we get back. So basically I’m car-less until we get it looked at. The cardboard has been there overnight and Tom checked and couldn’t see anything on the cardboard so I’m thinking it must be a slow leak of some kind. Still, I refuse to let it ruin the vacation. I won’t think about the cost and keep my fingers crossed that it is still under warranty for whatever it is.

I shall be blogging from California as our resort has high speed Internet (yay!) as well as uploading pictures when possible cos it will help keep my memory card from maxing out!

I so can’t wait! California here we come!!!