weaselett

And for more California pictures (I am so slow).

4th July pictures are here

We spent the 5th July in San Francisco, then picked up the hire car on the 6th, heading to Monterey. The 5th was pretty much Alcatraz and wandering the piers.

We booked onto the first boat of the day (we were originally going to do the evening, but that was full, so sunday morning) - It takes a crazy amount of queuing and being herded into different places before you get on the green boat (they have renewable energy powered boats - this is impressive, also they use the russian style wind turbines, which are the more efficient so def bonus points).

Coit Tower from the boat

And Alcatraz

Once on the Island, we let the mob head off ahead of us and ambled up behind them.

Inside the cell block you have an audio tour to follow - I drifted a bit and hit pause to avoid being in the huge masses as they moved around.

Each cell was at a different level of repair - the toilets being the most notable thing on that count.

We then headed out to explore the rest of the island (and hunt for some of the birds we hadn't seen).

The exercise yard

It's really green, given the rock it's built on - so many flowers

And masses of water birds (this threw me, I am used to UK sea/river bird references, whereas all the stuff in the US is 'water birds' - weird but there you go)

And pretty views

I took a lot of pictures. Both me and the companion agreed that we would happily live on the island - so pretty and peaceful.

The warning sign, spotted as we left the island

And we stopped to look at the painted ladies in alamo square - though generally there are lots of pretty houses in San Francisco.

The 6th, I didn't take many pictures. We stopped at the Winchester Mystery house, is is soooooo pretty. It's a really nice, weird, old house. Sadly they don't allow pictures - we then stopped at Psycho Donuts before we left San Jose.