San Francisco, Backwards.

Today we headed into San Francisco to check out the downtown area, and more importantly (for me at least) to get some FREAKING CHINESE FOOD into me.

I've had an annoying headache for the last couple of days, which is seemingly connected to my sinuses, and refuses to leave. Perhaps some trepanation is on the cards.

I will (to mix this up a little) present this update in reverse order, beginning with today, and meandering backwards as I see fit, to where I see fit. Yes. I am Lord of this Blog you see.

BART, Hang Ah Tea Room, San Francisco
This morning I awoke with a ripping headache, and wanting very much to stay in bed. Still, I'm a massive trooper, so we trundled off to the local

BART station, and headed into downtown.

The sky was really smoky and dark, which made everything feel kind of weird, and today it was quite cold as well.

We popped out of the station amongst the crowds - it was kind of weird to be in a big city again, but our first impression of SF is that it's a pretty cool place.

We walked past the Apple store (and past the huge lines of idiots waiting to get in - don't get me started on queuing for appliances) and up to Chinatown.

In contrast to Vancouver’s sorry excuse, San Francisco’s Chinatown is a pretty cool place. There’s lots of typical kitschy Chinese things for the tourists, and it seems like there’s plenty of restaurants.

As promised on the Internet, a lady from the Hang Ah Tea Room handed us a menu and encouraged us to attend.

I’m not sure why we didn’t take any pictures (it could have been that I was busy stuffing my face) but it was everything I expected – strange fluorescent decor, and the slightly shabby aspect of many Chinese restaurants we know and love.

The food was great (even the stinky rice – yes stinky, not sticky), perhaps not the greatest yum cha (or dim sum as they call it here) in the world, but for less than USD25 for the two of us (and I ordered the expensive dish of Char Sui) it was well worth it.

Filled with treats we wandered the streets. It's a really nice city from what we saw - filled with restaurants and such, much like another city we know.

Lots of murals are painted around the place.

It's really good exercise - I didn't expect the crazy steep hills at all.

We walked up to the Coit Tower, got a view of Alcatraz, and looked at the worlds most crooked street.

Due to my over-mentioned headache, I was started to feel a little weary - so we headed home. Weirdly people have started to come and see the Turd in the campground (as we have for sale signs up) and some seem quite interested - and some guy saw the Jeep at the station and rang about it as well. Quite promising.

You can see our online ads here and here. Cool huh?

Oh, and if you want to see a genuinely sweet movie - then I can highly recommend the new Pixar offering - Wall-E. It's super-sweet without being too schmaltzy, and really enjoyable. I give it 4.5/5.

Sacramento, Pleasanton
Let me just say that the RV park we stayed at in Sacramento wasn't the highlight of our trip. I'd say it was comprised of around 90% permanent residents, and the "assistant manager" had absolutely no clue what was going on.

Kat spent the day cleaning the Turd. It surprisingly looks very nice. We didn't do much else as we were a bit pooped from the awful drive on I80.

The next day we headed into Pleasanton, which is a really nice place. It's a bit freaky due to the concentration of ye olde worlde houses, but seems quite affluent and quiet.

We spent the first couple of days cleaning, sorting, organising storage and all manner of exciting things. On Tuesday night we went crazy and and went out for dinner at the Agora Bistro in Pleasanton. Whilst I've never heard of a Greek AND Turkish restaurant, the food and wine was excellent (but I'm going to go with much more Greek than Turkish).

Wells, ID. Lovelock,NV. The Horror of I-80.
Wells was fine, nothing particularly special. Just a small town.

Same goes with Lovelock, although there seemed to be a high proportion of old dudes with portable oxygen tanks. Weird. While I was cooking ribs (or falling asleep on the couch) Kat nipped out and snapped a few pics of our palatial surrounds.

There’s nothing quite like a pool with no water in it.

Look at those fine vehicles!!

Just one thing to say about I-80 thought. It sucks. I’ve never seen a road with grooves in it where all the tires have worn away the surface. I don’t mean a small groove either, I mean your car sits in it like you’re a train on rails. Bumps? Forget bumps, it’s more like dodging craters. I’m surprised the poor Turd was even in one piece by the time we arrived. She’s made of stern stuff this one.

Leaving Yellowstone, Pocatello, ID
It was sad to leave Yellowstone, it’s a beautiful place, and it was strange to start the last flight of the Turd. We were treated though to many, many bison hanging around that morning, some were even swimming. When I get off my ass I will present the BISON SPECTACULAR.

Pocatello – City of Idaho State University, and funeral homes. Not sure what they do to the kids there, but….

Next Update: Bison, Asian Art Museum, Other Random Stuff