Apologies for the final time for the delay in putting these posts together: since we got back from California, Margie and I seem to have been grappling with one family issue after another and I simply have not had the available brain bandwidth to devote to this!

And oh, yes…. Margie and I did manage a few days in Seville, Spain in mid February to celebrate our 46th Wedding Anniversary… a great city and highly recommended if you have never visited. Great food, welcoming people, large river and lots and lots of impressive – mainly eucumenical – buildings. We loved it!

Day 1: Wednesday 28th December – London to San Francisco

I have to start with a confession: when I was planning this trip my expectations about the weather were seriously influenced by the Beach Boys surfing music I grew up with in the ’60s…. My fearful ignorance meant I expected to be on the beach or in the pool everyday, so I planned clothes to pack accordingly and rented a Mustang Convertible for our Road Trip! That said I can’t be blamed for the ‘once in a lifetime’ weather we did actually experience…..

As the truth finally dawned on me about California’s geography [lots of very big mountains as well as beaches!] and so-so winter sunshine, plus the dramatically deteriorating weather forecasts, I realized we had to be equipped for all kinds of weather…..

The immediate practical implication was that i had to splash out on an extra baggage allowance for Margie so that she could pack to cope with whatever the climate threw at us….!!

Our scheduled flight time was 10:45 am but my obsession with getting to the airport absurdly ahead of time has become part of family folklore, so long-suffering younger daughter Jen picked us up at 6:30 for the 20 mile drive to LHR.

Check in at T5 these days shows how far BA has gone in the art of getting the customers to do all the work so they can reduced their costs and increase the margins…. customers have to do it all themselves using the clever little machines which read you passport, generate boarding passes and then print out baggage labels, which you have to attach to your bags yourself. I still haven’t managed that process without shame of the machine telling me to ‘seek assistance’, I’ll get there one day…..

Much as I admire British Airways and always fly with them if at all possible, the food in economy is to be avoided at all costs. Given LHR to SFO is a ten plus hour flight, that was something of a challenge on this trip…

Drama free flight despite the full aeroplane and we touched down in San Fanciso pretty much on time.

We had the delight of being greeted at SFO by Will and Marion, and Marion’s Mum Nathalie. Margie and I had met Nathalie once before when she was visiting Will and Marion in London. The four of us had lunch at an Ethiopian Restaurant as I recall….

Our friends whisked us off to the Brossard’s house in posh Menlo Park, about 20 miles south of San Francisco. They had arranged to borrow an MPV for a few days so that we could all travel together on our journeys… All very confortable and civilised I have to say, if not quite as stylish as either Gerard’s Tesla, Nathalie’s bright red convertible VW Beetle or the huge family armoured truck that passes for a camper van!!!

On arrival at Chez Brossard we met Gerard, Marion’s Dad and her brother Cedric for the first time. Lots of hand shaking in the French way and kisses on both cheeks for Margie…. We discovered later than Cedric had been kind enough to give up his en-suite bedroom for our benefit – thanks, buddy!

Chez Brossard turned out to be several thousand square feet of a much extended single story Californian version of the Ponderosa…. Complete with pool of course, being California and an outdoor jacuzzi which we were to sample a couple of days later – when the rain briefly stopped!

Margie and I have done our share of intercontinental travel over the years and having to cope with jet lag, but our hosts seemed to have it down to a T! A bite to eat then off for a brisk walk around a local nature reserve followed by dinner and we weren’t allowed to go to bed before 9:00 pm [that’s 5:00 am UK time, having got up at 5:30 am the previous day for our ride to LHR – we had been awake for almost 24 hours!]

Day 2: Wednesday 29th December – In and around Menlo Park

The Brossard anti-Jet Lag strategy worked brilliantly!! Up the next morning around 9:30, not exactly fresh as daisies but very little of the jet lag that I normally whinge about for at least 48 hours.

But of course i was starving hungry and tore into breakfast a la francaise…

Next thing we knew we were off in the MPV for a hike in the Big Trees Park: a 45 mile drive through the dramatic Californian redwood forest mountain scenery between San Jose and the Pacific Ocean. Lots of traffic, lots of rain and one section where we had to travel in convoy with a Highway Patrol escort. The seemingly endless succession of aggressive weather fronts coming in from the Pacific and the associated high winds and torrential rain had taken its toll and the traffic cops were being very cautious!

The main attraction at Big Trees Park turned out to be Roaring Camp – a 1880s railroad themed tourist attraction which was not running due to the weather…. Here are a couple of pics to give you an idea:

What we were mainly interested in were the hiking trails through the California Coastal Redwood Forest and the pic of the train gives you an idea of the density of the forest and the height of the trees. The railroad had originally been constructed to bring the harvested redwood trees down to the coast for transport all over the US.

The hiking trail Gerard had picked out for us was just under seven miles and took us about 90 minutes up and down along a twisting trail through the giant redwood trees. An excellent leg stretch, Margie coped very well with the gradients and we worked up a sterling appetite for lunch…..

……and a sterling lunch at the Cowboy Bar & Grill in South Felton was the reward we got for our efforts:

The interior of the Saloon was very interesting but not quite as bizarre as the motif on the front door. The significance of a naked Native American lady doing yoga on a butterfly was too deep for me to fathom I’m afraid…. Inside was rustic, not to say ‘spit and sawdust’, but lots of folks – seemed all to be locals – in their blue jeans, cowboy boots and bit hats tucking into huge plates of ‘cowboy’ fare…. As in the UK craft beers are a huge ‘thing’ here and the local IPA was very tasty! By now I was completely out of sync with food and for my ‘light lunch’ tucked into a giant plate of ribs and ate the lot….

The only dissonance was a bit of good humoured sqabbling about who was going to pay the bill – I lost the squabble and Gerard paid! A couple of days later, Gerard introduced us to a very clever App which ensured all the feeding and accommodatin expenses of our Road Trip were logged and equitably shared between us….

By dinner time, the Law of Unintended Consequences finally caught up with me and having been completely out of sync with food and appetite, I disgraced myself by being unable to eat the sumptuous evening meal our French hosts had worked so hard to prepare for us.

Memo to self: try to remember in future, jet lag is not only about sleep patterns, it’s also about feeding routines….

Day 3: Thursday 30th December –

Our hosts had plainly resolved that we were not going to endure a dull moment in California, so we jumped in the car again and sped 90 miles south to Monterey heading for the Monterey Peninsular which sticks out into the Pacific Ocean and is the home of the legendary Pebble Beach Golf Course as well as the Del Monte Forest and Pacific Grove.

If you are a golf fan like me, you won’t need any introduction to Pebble Beach, if not then perhaps the fact that it has hosted six US Open Tournaments, more than any other golf course, will give you some idea of its standing in the world of golf….

As we turned into the entrance to the 17 mile drive we were treated to the sight of three young deer calmly trotting across the road…..

Here is a selection of images for you from our 17 Mile Drive….

The three pics of the beach and boardwalk were taken in Spanish Bay: it’s called Spanish Bay to honour explorer Gaspar de Portolà, who camped here with his ship’s crew in 1769 while exploring the coastline and trying to find the Monterey Bay. The mythology is that he never did find Monterey Bay….

You can see the obligatory pic of the Lone Cypress: its image is so iconic that the Pebble Beach Company adopted it as their logo.

The Restless Sea is what it sounds like: it’s because of ocean currents coming close to shore or submerged rocks, and the ocean’s constant motion brings food to the local marine life, and a large kelp forest grows in calmer waters near the shore.

Bird Rock, too, is what it sounds like: and there are certainly lots of them. We saw Brandt’s cormorants, pelicans, plus we saw California sea lions sharing the rock, and a harbor seal or two hanging out near the waterline. We also spotted some Sea otters which float in the kelp beds. We spent a goodly time at Bird Rock making best use of our binoculars to take in all the wild life!

We also spotted some rather lovely beach flowers, the names of which are unknown to me, I’m afraid

A very French New Year’s Eve Celebration!

Day 4 of our Californian Adventure was New Year’s Eve and the next post will describe the New Year Celebration a la Francaise…..

Watch this space!