Tuesday July 6th

A real report straight from the heart of America - well, San Francisco anyway!  I am writing this as we are sitting in the dining room of the gorgeous old Queen Anne Hotel having brekky & preparing for our day's exploring north of San Francisco (this will inevitably involve checking out some wineries in Sanoma & the Nappa Valley).
We arrived safely in LA at 6am July 4th after leaving Melbourne at 6am on July 4th - isn't the world a wonderful place?  Great flight & the Business Class space worked well for me.  Grabbed our car, as you can see below & headed out of LA, travelling along the Pacific coast through Malibu.

The ranges coming right down to the coast were pretty impressive (despite the very low cloud) but the buildings were much less so.  One truly amazing thing was the number of Winnebagos & trailer homes parked right along the roadsides by many beaches for the long weekend - one miscalculated step & the inhabitants of these would be roadkill!
Once we reached Morro Bay ( a beautiful little fishing port) we left Highway 101 & travelled along the coast on Highway 1 - much less inhabitated  the cloud had lifted a little so the views up into the ranges were astounding.  The coast was absolutely amazing - huge cliffs and towering rocks diving into the water.

A real bonus was an Elephant Seal colony at Piadras Blancas, all males which were ashore moulting. As you can see, this fellow was enjoying the sand on his scratchy skin.

We arrived at Big Sur after a long drive & spent the night at Deetjens Inn, a beautiful quirky place surrounded by redwoods.  This photo is looking up into the canopy.

Yesterday we spent the morning at the Monterey Bay aquarium & it was as fascinating as Murray had led me to believe it would be.  Sea Otters & the jellyfish display were the highlights.

From there we travelled to San Francisco through Carmel (gorgeous) and moved into the hotel.  Spent the remainder of the afternoon exploring Haight Ashbury (reliving our hippy days) & the area around Pier 39, which will deserve a better exploration tomorrow.