Land of the giants

Sacramento was a lovely place. It's the third biggest city in California, and I think I'm right in saying that it's the state capital. It just had a nice feel about the place and the buildings were pretty. It helped a lot I think, that we were recommended a cool coffee house and in there, everyone seemed really cool – that always helps me like a place, when the people who live there seem cool and dress well!

We went to Old Sacramento, which is an area that has remained as it was back in the olden days – mainly just for tourists though. But nevertheless, it's a pretty little place full of shops. Kev wasn't keen as he was noticing lots of homeless people, but I didn't think it was any worse than any other big city we had been to. We went to State Park which was pretty fancy and generally just wandered around. We decided we would stay there that night and checked into a motel. We were pretty tired because we'd got up so early expecting our trip out of Tahoe to take hours. We spent the afternoon chilling out and when the sun went down we headed to the cool coffee shop for a coffee. We left there to try and find a take away place, but instead we found a cool bar – turns out it was an English bar, but it was cool. I wasn't drinking, so it meant it was my turn to drive, which Kev always finds pretty scary, but I managed!

We grabbed a Chinese takeaway and went back to the hotel and that was Sacramento.

The next morning, after grabbing a coffee from Weatherstones – my new favourite coffee houses– we drove north west through California and up into Oregon. We still hadn't decided whether we were going to go all the way up to Seattle, so we figured we'd make it up to Grant's Pass in Oregon and then make our mind up. The drive through California was so different to the other states we had been to, there was actually vegetation along most of these roads! Unsurprisingly, I had developed an annoying cough over the last couple of days, to go with the cold that I seem to be constantly fighting, so I was pretty tired on this drive, having kept myself awake most of the night. I decided to put the chair back and try and get some shut eye. With my feet up on the dashboard and my head right back on the floor, I was pretty comfy as Kev drove along the Interstate.

I woke to find Kev turning off the road – he was being pulled over – again! He hadn't been speeding, he hadn't been doing anything, but a police car had driven past him, then slowed right down and gone behind him and then pulled him over! Strangely, the policeman did not go to the driver's side, but instead came to my window. He peered in and asked us where we were headed. Kev got nervous again and forgot where we were going, so I replied 'Grant's Pass'. The policeman glanced around the car and then said 'OK guys, drive safe'...and that was that, no reason, no nothing – all we can imagine is that the policeman drove by and saw two feet on the dashboard with no head and wanted to check that Kev wasn't actually the '7 minute abs' guy who was carrying a dead hitch-hiker on the front seat! Satisfied that Kev wasn't a murderer, the policeman drove off and we continued, bemused, but amused, on our journey to Grant's Pass.

We got to Grant's Pass, which looked nothing like the pictures on the internet, it was just a bit of a nothing town – not nice, not horrible, just nothing. We checked into a travelodge and then walked just across the street to a bar where we could get dinner. Kev hadn't eaten all day and he ordered a huge burger. The woman who served us was like, 'you know that's two burgers in a bun, yeah?'. Kev told her he was starving and she just rolled her eyes and walked off. When the burger came the guy next to us commented 'wow, that's a big burger', but it turns out that Kev has an appetite bigger than an American's – who'd have thought it – and sure enough he ate the whole thing. I was craving vitamins and settled for a salad - the nicest salad I've ever eaten I must say – I suspect it was the ton of salt that was sprinkled all over my chicken!

The pub played awesome music and it was a typical American red neck style bar, where we all sat along the bar and watched sport on the TV screens. Kev was a bit freaked out because it looked exactly like the bar in the film 'Monster' which is a pretty gross film, so gross in fact that I refuse to watch more than 10 mins! But we had a nice evening and then headed back to the motel.

We needed to decide whether we were going to head north or south from Grant's Pass. We both really wanted to go to Portland and Seattle, but it was a long drive and we weren't sure. We realised that the Portland in Oregon was actually not the Portland we had wanted to go to (we wanted to go to Portland in Maine, which is the other side of this little country!!) and we decided that Seattle was too far, we were getting sick of long drives, so the decision was made that we would head south instead.

That night, we didn't have the best night's sleep in the world because it was absolutely freezing. Whenever we switched the heating on it must have churned up dust or something and it made me cough ridiculously, so we were forced to put up with the cold instead!

So, the next morning we drove down to Crescent City which is just on the northern tip of the Redwood Forest National Park. It wasn't a long drive and it seemed like a nice enough place when we got there. The park ranger in the tourist info was super helpful and the Pharmacist in the Chemist was lovely when he sold me some cough medicine, so we were happy to spend a night there. We didn't do much that day though, just ate lunch in a traditional dinner and did some laundry. In the evening, Kev popped out to get a Taco Bell – we had been meaning to try Taco Bell since we got to America because they look so good on the adverts – turns out, the adverts lie! No, it was OK and cheap, did the job, filled a hole, but don't think I'll be going out of my way to get a Taco Bell again.

The following day, we drove down to Redwood Forest. The trees there are just crazy big. We did one little hike and it kind of freaked me out to be in such a huge forest. But Kev was having a great time, climbing trees and running around, I think he reverted back to being a little boy for just a short while!

We continued the drive, which is totally worth doing. Kev had been getting sick of the driving in America. He says it either just really boring straight roads that go on forever and there's no other traffic around, or it's the opposite, where there are a million cars, switching lanes and going super fast – so it's either boring or stressful. So when we got to Redwood, I think Kev was pleased to be able to do some normal driving again, through the forest and on a windy road, with plenty to look at.

We drove though the Elk Meadows and saw a few Elks and then found ourselves in a town called Eureka. We had intended to stay in Eureka that night so we stopped and got some lunch and had a bit of a wander around. It didn't seem like a great place so we decided to move on to the next town, Fortuna. We were glad we did because as we were driving out of Eureka we saw what a truly horrible place it was. There was a million homeless people all loitering around the streets and the only motel we saw was full of bums hanging around outside. We were glad to get back on the Freeway and out of that place.

By the time we got to Fortuna, it was getting dark, so we just checked in to a Best Western Motel. It was above budget and I think at first Kev was a bit annoyed that I'd gone ahead and booked it. But that changed when he saw the huge reclining chair in our room, and he settled into that for the night, re-enacting that episode of Friends where Joey and Chandler shout 'Draw' and catapult their reclining seats back – it amused him.

After an awesome breakfast, where I learned how to use a waffle iron (I don't even like waffles, but I wanted to have a go anyway) we drove on to the Avenue of Giants, which is another part of the Redwood Forest. The trees here are so tall it is nuts and we did a couple of nice little walks and again, Kev had plenty of fun climbing trees.

And after that, we began the long drive to San Francisco. We stopped off in a lovely little place called Willets and got a coffee and some groceries, but that turned out to be a bad idea. From Willets to San Fran there were no rest stops and the two of us became so desperate for the toilet that it hurt!! We got to the Golden Gate Bridge and were overjoyed to see a visitor centre which had toilets. We literally ran from the car to the toilets, it would have been hysterical had it not hurt so much!

We took a few photos on the bridge and it was nice to see other tourists for a change. We haven't seen many tourists anywhere that we've been in America, so it felt nice to be surrounded by others who weren't from the place.

Back into the car and to the motel in San Fran. We instantly knew we liked this city when we were driving in. The buildings are beautiful and we had to drive up this hill that was literally like 90 degrees steep – well maybe not that steep, but I honestly though the car was going to topple backwards. And before I go into more details about San Fran, here's Kev with some pictures of the story so far....