Still more reviewing

Stop 6: San Francisco

After a year of never being in temperatures of below about 20 degrees Celsius, it ended. On 13th December at 9.08pm I thought I died when I left San Fancisco airport. It turned out it was only about 10 degrees C but it may as well have been -15 to my nicely tropical weather adjusted body. The winter coat, the hat, the gloves, and the layers all came out. You'll note the difference in wardrobe I'm sure.


Yet another 400 photos of a world famous landmark bridge.


I went (voluntartily I might add) to Alcatraz. This, I swear, is the coldest place on earth. Maybe that was part of the plan, 'not just a maximum security prison on an island, but let's make it a maximum security prison on a island with sub-zero temperatures! Muhahaha!'It is owned by the National Parks Service and has an excellent tour you can do, hearing all about the history of it, famous inmates like Al Capone and attempted breakouts. Apparently none were successful. I'm not surprised, if the cold outisde their cells didn't get them, surely the water would have.


Mrs. Doubtfire's house. Oh yes! There was even a Merc outside. I thought about ripping it off and muttering something under my breath but I didn't. Must have been the visit to Alcatraz that put me off any sort criminal activity.


I hired a bike and rode along Golden Gate Park, another National Parks triumph. I wore the wrong type of jeans though and carelessly forgot my bicycle clips. Tucking one legs of your jeans in though is how the cool kids wear them. I named my bike Silver Mist, following in the camp tradition.

This video is going around the first of the supports of the bridge. They're huge! But check out my skills at riding a bike and taking a video! I'm not even using stabilisers!




Let me just say this, should you ever go to San Francisco, be aware it has a lot of hills. If you've been to San Francisco thanks for not reminding me. I would look at a map and think 'ah it's only x blocks, I'll walk'. But along with the bicycle clips, I also carelessly forgot my mountaineering rope for the cliff face hills. This is Lombard Street, so steep they had to put bends in it.


Because of the hills, way back when someone decided cable cars would help out. They were right. Except for maybe the name. More a tram wouldn't you say?

I got to be the person to hang on the very front where I took this video. We nearly hit a car!

Stop 7: Lake Tahoe

You know I like a roadtrip so what better way to get to Detroit that to hire a car, ski for a bit, drive some more and fly the rest of the way? So that's what I did.

On the way was the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield, CA so I thought it would be rude not to stop. I went on the factory tour where I discovered that each Jelly Belly takes about 21 days to be made. Who knew?!

The Jelly Bellies go through a rigid qulaity control, but ever quick to make a buck they sell the rejects, or Belly Flops, if you will, onto to people like me. You get super sized ones like this cotton candy one (I put a regular one beside it so you could compare). It looked like a brain.

Interesting fact number 374: Lake Tahoe hosted the Winter Olympics in 1960.


Chair lift fun. It pretty much snowed all day. Brr. But I did get to ski in two states.


I drove to Reno (where part of Sister Act is set) airport. It was such a pretty drive. I stopped in Carson City and went to the Nevada State Museum which was surprisingly interesting. And of course I was stopped for this photo. Driving and taking photos is just stupid.

And two flights later and a delay in Chicago I was in Detroit.