1. Why isn’t the Golden Gate Bridge painted gold ?

As I write this in the Yosemite Valley, the peak of one of the great monoliths, El Capitan is capped by a pall of smoke from a forest fire to the west which has closed one of the interstate highways.  Clearly this is out of sequence but it is very dramatic.  On the way here we passed the fire devastation caused by an out of control illegal campfire in 2013 which destroyed 400 square miles of forest.  The info. boards say that the suppression cost was $127M.  By the way, Dorset is 1024 square miles.

San Francisco is expensive with accommodation and meals costing more than we paid in London two weeks ago.  We redressed the balance a smidge using the excellent public bus and trolleybus system.  As ‘seniors’ a flat rate fare was 75c (50p) and this was valid for 3 hours however many transfers we made.  It is a very hilly city and in October very hot with our first day in the high 80’s F rising to 93F by the time we left.  Naturally we were outside as much as possible and we’ve never seen so many people out running. 

As you may imagine San Francisco has more than its share of free spirits to the charitable among you or complete nutters to those of you who are less tolerant.  I admire them.  These are people who really don’t care what others think because they’re doing just what they want without causing anyone any harm.  The most free spirited I think we saw was a man near the botanic gardens (well worth a visit).  High heels, fishnet tights held up with a suspender belt, a red and black basque, an unseen but I imagine g-string up the bum, elbow length black gloves and topped off with a top hat.  Oh and lacy angels wings too.  I won’t speculate which side he was batting for but the outfit would have raised a few eyebrows in the long room at Lord’s.  We made sure we visited Haight Ashbury and if you need to ask you won’t understand.  It has a feel of its own and even the air seems different.  Only 45 years late and not enough hair to put flowers in even if I was inclined to.  As an area it was bit tacky but clearly was still a ‘far out sort of place, man’ and it wasn’t over commercialised.  We did find a great vintage clothes shop which had clothes both Heather and I recognised.  Actually I think I’ve still got some of them in my wardrobe.

We had to learn that sandos were sandwiches, we saw an advert for Nancy Boy beauty products “tested on boyfriends, never on animals” and came across a fur covered TV with antlers and a place where we could have had tattoos with organic ink. 

For anyone reading who might live within 75 miles or so of Boston, I’m sorry but San Fran. has taken over the No.1 US city in my book.  The setting and the general feel of the place is great although we haven’t seen it in the summer when the fog comes rolling in.   Down at the Ferry Building I just had to sample a Secret Breakfast cone at Humphrey Slocombe Ice Cream.  The company is obviously named in honour of Mr Humphries and Mrs Slocombe from the old TV sitcom ‘Are You Being Served’.  Incidentally, Secret Breakfast is cornflakes and bourbon.

The setting I mention places San Fran on a northward pointing peninsula with the Pacific to the west and the huge Bay to the east.  At the northernmost tip is the incredibly impressive Golden Gate Bridge which you may have heard of.  Alcatraz, where very naughty boys were held at The President’s pleasure is surprisingly close to shore inside the harbour.  Incidentally, the bridge isn’t gold because the designer liked undercoat rusty red and wrote a memo to argue his case with the Board of Directors, who presumably were beaten into submission by the 21 pages it ran to.

We head north across that bridge and drive the iconic Highway 1 along the coast.  And what a coast it is.  Very dramatic cliffs, rock stacks standing just offshore, lots of seals but no see Otters (yes, it is deliberate).  Unfortunately we also have a lot of fog on the second day.  We pitch up at Mendocino, a delightful little New England town apparently transplanted to the west coast.  It turns out to have been built by New Englanders and is now a rather fashionable retreat.   We would have stayed another day but unusually for us we have to move on because we have a booking in busy old Yosemite.  Our hotel/guesthouse in Mendicino is run by a couple of obvious old hippies.  The Didgeridoo Dream Time Inn and Meditation Center as a name offers a clue to our suspicion.  It’s clean and interesting although it is a bit off-putting to find the breakfast menu for the previous few weeks displayed on the chef’s apron.

Our journey to Yosemite is to take two days and according to the car thermometer temperatures rise to 99F as we travel SE through fertile farmland and vineyards.  Of course it may be a two digit only gauge but it sure was hot.

We decide to approach Yosemite from the NW going into the park and then out again to our hotel on the Interstate 160.  As we pay our fee we’re told that I 160 has just been closed due to a fire.  It’s about 4.00, we can’t get to our hotel and it’s probably 80 – 100 miles to go round another way – and then we may not get through in the morning.  So with the help of the incredibly helpful park staff, we cancel our booking and make another in the Yosemite valley in an unheated tent with shared facilities.  Needs must.  It’s a bit like a holiday camp, Butlins perhaps, with canteen type food, although we later found out that unless we cared to book at the very expensive Ahwahnee Hotel that’s it for the valley.  By the time we finish dinner the fire has cut all the electricity to the valley and it stays off and the road stays closed until after we move on three days later.  It turns out to be a blessing to be in the valley which is truly spectacular.  The valley is a classic U-shaped glaciated valley, a bit like Lauterbrunnen on steroids and as we enter it all the iconic views are obscured by the smoke which is filling the valley courtesy of a west wind.

The two most well known sights, El Capitan and Half-Dome are jaw-dropping.  El Cap is an almost vertical one kilometre which takes 3-4 days climbing for the easy (!!) routes and up to 10 for the most difficult.  Sleeping, well bang in a metal spike, hook on a hanging cot and they say you sleep like a baby.  I imagine this means waking every hour or so screaming your head off.  We can just make out climbers through our binoculars looking like really tiny flies on a wall.  Half-Dome looks like an egg stood on end and sliced vertically and from a distance it looks smooth on the top with the ‘cut’ edge if anything even more vertical than El Cap.  It is a beautiful rock.

An awful lot of the information here is about bears.  Nothing even remotely food related is to be left in cars or tents and metal boxes are supplied to put everything in.  To be honest it’s even worse than getting on an aircraft.  There are pictures of car doors bent open and films of bears climbing through an open car window.  This is a full sized Yogi type not a Boo-Boo.   If we encounter one while walking we have to shout as loud as we can (probably don’t have to be told this really) and back away slowly.   Bill Bryson says to look for bear droppings and to sew small bells to the bottoms of trouser legs so that the bear can hear you coming because they don’t like shocks – so no surprise birthday parties for them.  Apparently you can recognise bear droppings because it always has small bells in it.