After spending the last two months in the eastern United States, we repacked all our bags, dug out our winter gear, bid farewell to the Chrysler van and set off on a plane (or rather, two) for California. First stop on the west coast was San Francisco and after landing in the evening, we picked up our new Dodge minivan (the cheaper-in-every-way version of the sweet ride we’d had on the east coast) and headed off to our AirBnb and bundled ourselves into bed.
The following day we took the train to the Embarcadero area. We stopped to grab a coffee – Seb was very excited to buy his coffee from a street stall that had a robot that made your coffee. Turns out a coffee machine makes your coffee then a robot arm picks up the cup and hands it to you. Quite entertaining to watch but unfortunately tasted like garbage. Nevertheless we continued to wander around downtown and walked along the waterfront, past the piers to Fisherman’s Wharf. The Wharf was very touristy but entertaining for the kids and we found a carousel for Moose to ride and then went to see the sea lions at pier 39.
The next day we went to Golden Gate Park – we came across an amateur game of baseball then found a playground for the kids to wear themselves out on. On the way home we visited the Golden Gate Bridge for a few photos.
Monday was time to leave and start driving down the coast towards LA, but not before we forgot one of our bags at the AirBnb and had to turn back to retrieve it. Second time lucky and we were back on the road. We took the coastal highway and enjoyed the stunning views through Big Sur and of the pacific on our drive down to San Simeon – the coast and the landscape reminded us a lot of the South Australian coast.