We left Las Vegas with 1 stinking cold and 1 massive hangover. After Joss' all night stint out on the town (the dirty stop out got home at 6.15am), the hangover, the panic over losing the wallet, the throwing up and a pretty good breakfast. We spent the day on the Strip before getting the bus to San Francisco.
After one failed attempt at doing the wine tour (we both had hangovers) we managed it. An hour outside San Fran are the most beautiful valleys full of grape vines. The valleys are 20 miles wide in places and you can see right out across them, from one hill range to another. The valleys are split into different vineyards which produce some pretty average and some pretty fabulous wine. On the wine tour we visited 3 completely different establishments and sampled some really good wine (well I was told it was, I had no taste buds whatsoever) The last place was a mock Tuscan villa which really rounded up the tasteless tack that the Americans can produce. They wanted to reproduce Tuscany and the feel of Italy. Being in the grouchy fed up mood I was in my immediate thoughts were "Be original - stop bloody copying every other country!"
It was really beautiful though. Luckily Miss Drummond is on a mission to become a bit of a wine buff and purchased 2 bottles of wine from the vine yards so I was able to taste them when we were in Fuji. Good old Jossy!
Yet again a place I had heard lots about and had a vision in my head of what it looked like. Nope - wrong again!!!
We went on the trip from pier 41 along with a good few hundred others. There was of course the obligatory photo against a wonderful tourist setting. This time I decided to stick my tongue out for the photo - fetching
It doesn't actually look that far away from the shore when you are on the ferry but the water is so uninviting that I can understand why the inmates didn't want to swim it. The Island reminded my of a war ravaged village, decrepid, silent and still. The buildings were down trodden and vile. You really were able to get the full idea of what it must have been like to have been imprisoned there.
The cells were tiny and boxed ontop of each other. There weren't that many and the whole place was a lot smaller than I thought it would be. Put it this way I would not be seen dead anywhere near the place after dark. It definatley put the frighteners on me!