California trip
 

I'm going in California in August (for 3 weeks) with my girlfriend (I'm landing in San Fransisco), so I could use any suggestions about things to see, places to visit, bars to drink in, you name it...

California's a big state. :D Then again, 3 weeks is a long time.

Are you planning to spend the whole time in the San Francisco area? Or will you be driving around? Do you guys enjoy outdoorsy things (hiking, camping, etc.?)

The weather will probably not be super nice in San Francisco in August, but it will be in other parts of the bay area. Just not in San Francisco itself (lucky us :rolleyes: )

No trip to San Fran is complete without a walk across the Golden Gate bridge. Just try to resist the urge to jump. :D

If you want to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show with a fun crowd, go to this place in Oakland (across the bay from San Fran). It's really fun... they have live actors who perform during the movie.

I should warn you that if you admit you've never seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show while you're in line, they will make you go through an initiation. For my initiation, they forced me to fake an orgasm in front of the whole audience, including my mom... which was embarrassing. Also they wrote "Virgin" on my forehead in marker which wouldn't wash off in time for my flight the next day... also embarrassing.

Why is everyone going to CA for their adventures? The East coast has wayyy more to offer. EAST SIDE! EAST SIDE!

Anyway, if it were me, i'd stick to the north, I hear it's pretty naturey up there, and i'm a naturey kind of guy.

I grew up on the Eastern side of the country, so hills, churches, and long-leaf pines I've seen. Give me sagebrush, ghost towns, and casinos on my vacation- I'm going to Reno!

ScottMate

We went to Reno last fall at the beginning of our houseboat vacation. That was quite an experience. :crazy: It's all kind of a blur... except the all-you-can-eat buffet. :D

The east is a nice place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit there.

Or do I have that mixed up?

No, you've got it exactly right. I'm not knocking the East, but any part of it differs from the rest of it in detail only. When I travel, I want to see things that are completely different from what's within a few miles of my home.

ScottMate

Are you friggin nuts? A places in New England are very very different than places in NY or PA (if PA counts as east). The only reason I could see for saying that it doesn't differ much is because the east US is such a small area. Pretty much anything below PA is considered the south.

Are you also going to see the old California? With the old Spanish houses?


I always loved the Donald Duck story "In Old California!" by Carl Barks.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ara7/fc328.jpg

With Panchita http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...7/panchita.jpg

Rolando http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...a7/rolando.jpg

Tina http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...hara7/tina.jpg

Don Gaspar http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...7/dongaspa.jpg

The Señora http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ra7/senora.jpg

And...Ezry http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...hara7/ezry.jpg (he's one of the bad guys).


- :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

I'll definetly rent a car, so we won't stay in San Fransisco (actually, I think we'll stay in Palo Alto, where friends of mine live.
I'm not that much into hiking or camping, but apart from that, yes, we enjoy outdoorsy things (I'm planning to go to Yosemite).

As for the Rocky Horror Picture Show, well, I think I'll try to see it here in France, where initiation are a little less extreme :crazy: .

So, suggestions?

Go drive through that big red tree forest thingy. I hear you can drive right through some of the trees! And maybe you'll see big foot, or as he's more commonly known, saksquash.

For those of us from the South, "The South" stops at the Virginia/Maryland state line. Maryland and everything North of there is "The North" (although people from Maryland tend to disagree with this opinion). My point was that you have rolling tree-covered hills and some mountains dotted with small towns and the occasional major city from where I live in central Alabama to where you live in NewYork and beyond. There are parts of Alabama that strongly resemble New England and vice versa, as well as lots of places in between that resemble either or both.

ScottMate

We should start a new South v. North, East v. West thread to duke this out among our American selves for as long as we want . . . meanwhile Ninth just wants a nice vacation! :D

I haven't been to CA in a while, but definitely drive up through Napa and Sonoma. I know, you are from France, why come to America for wine? But it's beautiful country and the vineyards are very close together along two highways (I forget the names--I think Highway 9 runs through Napa Valley, but Emily would know, and another Highway runs through Sonoma Valley). There's a little road that connects the two and right at the junction there's a place called the Oakville Grocery (in the town of Oakville!) that is (or used to be) really great--you can get very nice bread and cheese there and have a picnic with some wine . . . Yum. :9~

When I was in college I went to California with my family and we managed to drive all around the wine country, San Francisco, Monterey and Carmel, the Redwood Forest, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe (which is beautiful--you should take a boat out onto it if you can, the water is crystal clear and incredibly deep . . . unless that is some lake on the East coast and I am misremembering :frown: ), and a ton of other places in just a week. (Oh, we saw some really cool Spanish missions . . . if you think everything in America is brand-new, go to one of the mission towns, which the Spanish settled when they had an empire here in the 17th century.) Of course, my father likes to spend the whole vacation driving, but anyway, if you have three weeks you will have time to see a lot. You should drive down Route 1 towards Los Angeles . . . it is very narrow and sometimes crowded but everyone drives it for pleasure because it runs along the coast and the mountains come right down to the ocean.

I'm sure any guidebook will tell you all of this, but I hope it helps a little. Have a good time!

My mind has gone blank on things to do, but I do have advice on one thing to not do: Unless you're super excited by visiting Hollywood or Disneyland, I recommend not bothering going to Los Angeles/Southern California. If you want to plow all the way through LA to go south to San Diego for some reason, which is nice, (or if you want to visit Mexico) then yeah I guess go there, but in my opinion (unless you like Disneyland, or really want a picture of yourself with the Hollywood sign in the background), the horrible traffic, urban sprawl, smog, and general falling-apartness of the Los Angeles areadoesn't really make it worth visiting in my book.

If you have time to spare and want to see the pacific coast, though, the drive down the coast on Highway 1 from Silicon Valley/Santa Cruz to San Louis Obispo is totally nice (if a bit curvy), with some great views, small beaches to stop at along the way, and this restaurant in Big Sur about half way on the drive, which is a pretty nice place, built up on a cliff overlooking the Pacific. The drive takes the good part of a day though (and requires a full tank of gas), but I try to do it whenever I have to go to southern California but have a lot of time on my hands to do it.

:confused:

What, does California have a reputation for scary Rocky Horror initiations? I've seen it in many places and California was no stranger than anywhere else.

I actually don't think Rocky Horror plays anywhere around here any more. The one in Berkeley closed down years ago (unless they reopened and I didn't hear about it). I saw it in San Jose about 8 years ago (ack, I feel old) and it was kind of lame. You really want to see a good Rocky Horror Picture Show, go to Cambridge. :) *waves at EasilyConfused*

I agree, you might want to try the wine country, and maybe book a B&B for a few nights up there. It's a long drive from Palo Alto so you probably won't want to do it all in one day. The Monterey Aquarium is a few hours' drive south of Palo Alto, that's a neat trip too, and you can go to Carmel afterward for dinner and drink in Clint Eastwood's pub. :)

Also, if you're planning to do sightseeing and go out in San Francisco, I suggest getting a hotel overnight there. Palo Alto is a fine place but it's a hike, and you're going to be spending a lot of time in the car if you try to go back and forth between Palo Alto and San Francisco for more than a day.

There are some amusement parks around too if you're interested in doing that for a day. There are Great America and Six Flags parks relatively close to Palo Alto.

I'm trying to remember what we used to do for fun when I lived in the Palo Alto area... but I think it mainly involved a lot of shopping and going out for coffee. :crazy: There's lots of good, authentic Asian food (at least, more authentic than I had growing up in Boston!) on the Peninsula, though.

Oh, Hearst Castle is a cool place to visit too. It's in San Simeon, down the coast (farther south than Monterey). I went there a few years ago. We stayed in a neat B&B in Cambria that I recommend.

Oh yeah? Well.....

...EAST SIDE! EAST SIDE!

I like Wales.

Widdershins! Widdershins!


- :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

The biggest attraction of CA is, of course, Tim Schafer at Double Fine Productions. :D

--Erwin