Holidays End

So I have finally arrived at the end of my holiday.  It has been awesome.  It feels like I have been away for months, though I suspect this might be because I have crammed so much in.  I am currently sitting on my flight back to Brisbane from Nadi, Fiji.  In typical Michael Keetsman style, the flight has gone smoothly, however I almost missed it...

But first, Saturday.  Matt and I were scheduled to drive some very exotic cars on a proper circuit, at great speed.  I couldn't wait.  Literally, we got there about an hour early...  We were greeted by the Exotics racing crew, and told we could walk around the garage and sit in the. ars and take some photos so we did that.  I also spent some time checking out the coarse to try and master some of the turns before jumping in the car. Sure enough our wait was up, we attended the safety briefing and lined up for our reconnasaince laps in the Porsche Cayenne.  The track was quite tight with many technical turns, it was tough trying to remember the coachs tips.  After the recon laps, it was time to climb into the Ferrari 458 d'Italia I had booked.  There is no way to describe the next 10mins other than they were just pure bliss.  The poor RX7 is going to need some serious attention, so I can get it back out on the track.  Matt also had an epiphinany with his Lamborghini LP570 and vowed he would also get his Evo out to the track.

Following that we had planned to go to shooting range to try out some machine guns, however on the way we spotted a museum that described the history of nuclear testing at the Nevada test site just north of Las Vegas.  This museum was awesome, it recounted every conceivable angle regarding nuclear weapons and testing.  We ended up spending about 3 hours wandering around.  When we finally reached the firing range, we discovered a %2 hour wait, so quickly decided to skip it...

Being our last night in Vegas, we decided to find a good resteraunt for dinner.  We ended up eating at one of the resteraunts in the hotel.  We were a little dissapointed with the service and meals, but it was a bit of a mad house.  We only left a 10% tip.

The next day we headed north for Lake Tahoe via the Extraterrestrial Highway.  The road wound its way through the desert through the rolling hills.  It was fascinating seeing the rock formations and all the different coloured strata within the rock formation.   Now the reason the highway is called the extra-terrestrial highway is because of its proximity to area 51 which is to the south west of the road.  In fact, the highway pretty much went 270deg around various government / military proving grounds, typically just on the other side of a set of hills.  So the locals would have constantly seen various strange experimental top secret aircraft that were unexplained by the government, thus treated as UFO's.  The landscape was desolate, we stopped at the only rest stop, which was eareily quiet.  The number of recent bugs on our front number certainly proved the abundance of life out there though.

The route we took through the wild west was very scenic.  We passed a couple of ghost towns that were kinda creepy, and stopped at one for lunch which looked well on its way.  We stopped for fuel in the middle of the US Army's ammunition manufacturing base, with fields as far as the eye could see full off ammunition bunkers.  We crossed into Lake Tahoe via a pass which me me miss the Ferrari greatly. The views were spectacular.  We didn' have accommodation booked, so we did a lap of what looked like the main street.  We ended up at a place that looked pass able.  I enquired about the price and wad told 29.90 for a single... bargain.  As it turns out, the hot water was brown, but hey cheap is cheap and I had showered that morning.  We enjoyed a great meal and several local brews at the pub next door before retiring for the night.

The next day we got up earlyish and had a great breakfast at Heidi's just down the road.  Like most American meals, breakfast was great value, and way to much on the plate.  I surrendered for only the second time.  There is a scenic drive around the circumference of the lake, we decided to drive 30 mins around and then turn back.  The views from the car were pretty, however from the vista points they were even better.  I did some rock scrambling, took some photos then packed up and started the drive to San Fran.  Not much happened on the way there, other than a very quick stop for lunch in Valejo (which turned to be in the middle of the hood... we didn't hang around).

After finding our hotel, I put on my walking shoes and set out.  I was intending to go straight to the water, with a view of perhaps walking across the Golden Gate bridge.  Well I found the water pretty quick, following Market to the ferry terminal.  I walked a short distance towards the Bay Bridge to take some photos.  From there I walked towards the Golden Gate.  I passed a bunch of landmarks, including Pier 39 with all the seals and aquarium, te Ferry terminals, Fort Mason, and Marina green before ending up at Crissy Park, where it was beginning to get dark.  I took some photos of the Palace of Fine Arts before catching a bus back to Union Square.  In total this walk was about 5miles, which explains why it was about 7 when I finally made it back to the room.  I learned that San Francisco was by far my favorite US city ( followed by Seattle and New York).  It is incredibly vibrant and diverse.  There seems to be a community feel about the place.  Anyways, Matt and Lana had spotted a good resteraunt to try, so I cleaned up and we went out.  Tne food and service from this place was outstanding.  It was Monday night and this place was packed, we liked it so much we made a booking for wednesday night.

The next day we went on the Alcatraz cruise.   We walked from our hotel down to Pier 23 where the cruise left from.  Once again I was treated to a master class in herding people.  This cruise is the most popular attraction on the west coast, so of course there were many many people there.  We boarded the boat and traversed the bay to the island itself.  It is a pretty neat place with a varied history.  It started as a simple lighthouse, then a civil war fortress, then military goal, then federal super max before finally becoming a tourist destination.  Arriving at the docks, we were treated to an introduction before setting off to explore.  We pretty much went straight to the cell house tour, which was excellent.  It was an audio tour which gave a very good narrative of the conditions experienced by prisoners, and more importantly, kept people moving through the goal (they are clearly pros at herding people).  For me the coolest part was when they talked about the various escape attempts, including the one with the fake heads, and dug out ventilation grate.  After the tour, I wondered around the island took some photos, and eventually found my way back to the dock for the trip back to San Fran.

We grabbed some lunch before getting a ticket on a open top tour bus.  The bus was a hop on hop off style with commentary.  They took us all over San Francisco past many of the sights, including the bridge, the houses Full House was filmed outside of, past many parks (all of which have fascinating histories that I can no longer remember), the tenderloin, and the civic centre.  It was a pretty good way to see the city.  We hopped off at the stop closest to our hotel and got ready for dinner.  Tonight we were meeting Matt's Aunt and Uncle.  They took us to a pretty neat italian bistro at the top of a very steep hill (it had steps people...).  The food was good, propably not as good as Fino's but still very nomcious.   Afterwards we went back to the hotel and called it a night.

The next day, I decided to go for a run.  I made it up and over one of the hills, before deciding I wouldn't make the bridge again, so I hired a bike.  This was deinately the right decision.  I only wish I had thought of it earlier, and that I had brought my camera.  I followed the bay around to the Golden Gate (basically where I walked on Monday) and made it to battery park which is at the base of the bridge.  This place is cool.  It is a former airstrip, and still has heaps of bunkers buried beneath mounds, with only a small entrance.  These are dotted all over the place.  Well I rode through there and went straight to the bridge, which I proceeded to ride across.  This was awesome.  I wish I had more time, to explore the national recreation area on the other side, but unfortunately I had to turn around and ride back.  I was running late, so I made a bee line for the hire place and back to my hotel.  In the afternoon we had planned to take a trip to the Sonoma and Napa valleys, so we got the valet to collect our car and we were off again, straight over the golden gate bridge and into Sausalito which was described on the tour as being San Francisco's riviera.  It was very pretty.  We made our way to Sonoma, getting our first taste of wine country about 30 minutes out of town.  It seemed like there was nothing but vineyards as far as the eye could see.  I daresay we must have missed the harvest, as there didn't appear to be much fruit on the vines, and that they had started to change colour.  We made I to Sonoma in time for lunch.  Sonoma is a quaint little town, with a square surrounded by resteraunts, wine bars and other boutique retail.  We found a cool little cafe / wine bar and enjoyed a good meal there.  Afterwards we wondered around the square, before finding our car and making or way to Napa.  Napa is quite a bit bigger than Sonoma.  I got us lost, so we ended up just driving around for a while before heading back to San Francisco.  We did go through what I think was the main part of town, so we probably saw as much as we need too.  That evening for dinner we went back to Fino's, and had another excellent meal.