California - Day 4

We arrived back in North America on Saturday morning. The flight was on a new American Airline's 777, but we found the video system lacking and the seats close together. The 10 hour flight seemed to pass by quickly non the less. Although we arrived at 10:00 a.m. Saturday morning in Los Angeles, our bodies thought it was 2:00a.m. in the morning on Sunday. It has taken four day to get fully adjusted to the time zone changes.

On Sunday, we drove the 5 1/2 hours up to San Jose from Los Angeles. The route took us up the I-5 Highway. We were amazed at how much farmland (ie boring drive) there is between LA and San Jose, and no towns. They are having a water shortage crisis in much of this region, with farmers only recieving 10% of the water for irrigation that they have in past years. Much of the land will go un-planted and that which has trees will likely have them all die.

On Monday, we went into San Francisco and did the Pier 39 stuff. We toured Alcatraz and as much as I pleaded with the guards, I couldn't get them to keep the kids locked up there. We saw the smelly Sea Lions laying on the docks. We toured the Boudin's Sour Dough Bread factory. We did the "Streets of San Francisco" drive to give a feel for some of the city. And although it was a hot 41 degrees the day before, we nearly froze our butts off! A very typical tourist day in San Fran.

We have a busy week planned, and the weather looks like it is going to be good. On Saturday we get our own vechicle from Harold, Jim and Rob who have driven it out here for us.

Cheers Ian



The Streets of San Francisco



The smelly Sea Lions at Pier 39



If only they would have kept them!