Sonoma - Santa Cruz - Highway 1 - Los Angeles

The end is nigh...

So to Sonoma, 1.5 hours from San Franscisco, 2 days fast-tracked wino tour. Of course, slightly hindered by the need to drive everywhere. Many an hour spent sobering up in the pub - me fashioned with a glass of water and bag of crisps.

We found the most amazing restaurant completely by accident in Santa Rosa, called G&Gs Earth and Surf. A brand spankingly new place with an amazing menu (chickpea chips no less) and a policy to source food from no further than 150miles away. The same went for alcohol. Not only all this, but it catered for my exact diet - vegetables and fish. This place was so good that we insisted on a three course lunch and went two days in a row...so much for that budget.

For wine tastings we found ourselves in Heraldsville, a sleepy, quaint little town with all manner of tasting options. Most fun was the Toad Hollow winery from which we purchased a bottle of rose and a bottle of bubbly...did someone say budget?

Probably a good thing we only had 48 hours here, but in reality it would have been grand to go the whole hog with a wine tasting tour. It's certainly on my to do list.

Next stop: Santa Cruz. Three hours of driving sees us in Santa Cruz, just before sunset. We are here following a recommendation from the man who sells jewellery opposite ferry terminal 4 in SF. Less than 24 hours to do the Board Walk. Our hotel is a motel and I'm excited. It's pink and floral, clean and spacious, but a 25 minute walk from the beach. Bit of a shame with limited time, still we hit the off-licence opposite for some choice picks for local beer and head on down to the beach in time for sunset.

The Board Walk is primary-coloured, tinny musical, fried food wonderment. According to budget we stick with things like the "make your own Santa Cruz Board Walk penny" machine and "Collect these Vintage Car Postcards for a dime" machine. The one thing we hadn't thought of is that there is no alcohol on the beach, so the 6 bottles of carefully chosen local beer we'd lugged all the way down, were lugged all the way back up again.

The hours worth of walking was rewarded with a midnight tryst at the local ice cream parlour, and boy was this place awesome. Marianne's late night ice cream parlour - it had to be done.

Next stop: Highway 1 to LA.

The longest drive of the West Coast excursion, 9+ hours and I think I stopped counting at 9 anyway. This drive was no without stops however, and on such a beautiful day as it was these stops were well worth the additional hours it took to arrive in LA. First pit stop was Monterey. This place felt proper seaside, with a proper sea breeze to help that feeling along. We stopped for brunch in this restaurant called First Awakenings which makes me hungry now at just the thought of it. After a quick wonder along the promenade we hit the road again, back to Highway 1.

The pit stops along the way consisted of serves into small roadside cubby holes, where we'd briefly leave the car to stand on the precipice of the road, look down to the turquoise blue Pacific Ocean and breathe in the vista that surrounded us. Quite simply put, this drive was breath-taking. We later read that highway 1 is one of the most dangerous roads in California, at the time I didn't consider it but there were a couple of white-knuckle moments: the lanky bridges spanning cliffs, the hairpin corners and the bottomless drop into the ocean made for some interesting driving.

Beat poets, red woods, humming birds, waterfalls, beaches full of seals, crashing waves, campsites, forest trails and wine...I would love to do it again, but this time with a whole month to spare.

So sunset passed behind us, twilight edged in, my eyes began to cross over and coffee was required. Following a small hiccup with getting lost in LA, we arrived at our hostel at midnight. Touted to be the best room in the house, we dragged our weary bodies upstairs to our private room and crashed out in preparation for a hectic last two days.

San Francisco and bringing it home

So to the last two weeks of my trip. San Francisco was an amazing city, there were all kinds of trips and events on offer - though I was acutely conscious of my fast dwindling budget so opted to do only free things. This meant I scaled almost the entire city by foot. I did not once take a subway/tram/bus/taxi or the like. As it goes, I was not only incredibly lucky with weather in Seattle but also in SF. Someone was smiling on me for once.

I did a lot of window shopping.

I walked the length and breadth of Market Avenue, with no particular agenda other than to see as much as humanly possible on foot. I found an amazing old arcade near Fisherman's Wharf which provided all manner of entertainment all for the price of a quarter or two. I experienced some impressive street art, saw (and smelt) seals, enjoyed the sea, took in the bridges, ports and boats. I had considered hiring a bike to cycle over the Golden Gate Bridge, but at $25 for the day it was well out of my price range. I was lucky (again!) enough to be in San Fran on the free museum days so got myself to the MOMA for an afternoon.

The hostel I was staying in had a massive communal area up front, which was pretty nice considering; so my evenings were usually spent hanging out here with a few tinnies from the corner shop opposite. Keeping it cheap there.

On my third day in SF Tyler arrived from London at around midnight, so we found ourselves in a 24 hour 1950s diner called Lori's eating veggie burgers and onion rings and drinking beer.

The next day was spent at an incredibly bizarre exhibition by Nick Cave - think all-in-one knitted body suits crossed with Sesame Street on acid - and finding our hire car. Having had a break from behind the wheel (for approximately 5 years) I was glad that cars in the US do all the gear shifting for you.

The highlight of that day was driving over the Golden Gate bridge at dusk, on the way to the Sonoma Valley to drink some of that Californian wine you always hear about.

Pulling my finger out...

Well, given that I've now been back in the UK for over a month, it really is time I tied up the end of my blog. So I'm pulling my finger out, it has literally been up my arse.

My three nights in Seattle were great, not only because the sun came out and stayed there. I was taken on a guided tour by a proper local and a very good new friend. We did the tourist thing and went on the underground tour. In fact, Seattle has a very interesting history and (although touristy and seemingly full of drunken women on hen weekends) was well worth the $15 I paid for it.

There was talk of heading up a tall building (I forget what it was called now, but I remember it was white and once was the tallest building in the US), but then we found a happy hour, so such plans were held off until happy hour had been well and truly taken advantage of. The rest of Seattle was hanging out in Calyn's garden, trialing public transport, views over the Bay (whichever one is closest to the famous market - also worth a visit), trips to the marina to see the boat makers, a drive along to see Lake Washington and admire the prim and proper, a gimsp at the radio tower, the Japanese gardens at the arboretum and a lot of appreciation of the beautiful weather.

My next West Coast destination was San Fransisco. I'd originally planned to try overland travel to San Fran, due to my over-exposure to air travel throughout the rest of my trip. This was partly an environmental decision, and partly the fact that I really dislike travelling by air. However, when I began researching the options they weren't looking too appealing. A train from Seattle to Fisherman's Wharf SF would have taken anywhere between 22 and 24 hours and cost approximately $90. Greyhound was a similar amount of time, and coming in above $80. So, I chanced the flights: a flight with Virgin America took 2 hours and cost $65. Despite my declaration upon leaving Costa Rica: "no more air travel until my flight out of LA" it would've been stupid not to.

So, off to San Fran, courtesy of Virgin America.