29/06/1985 San Francisco

Hotel: Grand Central Hotel
Weather: Fine

The Bruce brothers walked the Golden Gate Bridge today. It was kinda fun, I actually hadn't anticipated that to walk across it was an option, we'd walked toward it for a better photo position but as we got closer we realised you could actually walk to the other side of the bay.

We finally caught up with Brent this evening after his conference had wound up.

We all headed out to a club called Silhouettes. We got completely shit faced on Long Island Iced Teas. I'd never had one of these before but when I witnessed the bar man tip what seemed like a measure of every popular spirit into a glass, topped it with a dash a coke and seeing it was $4 Long Island Iced Tea night, I was right up for it.

No barmen has ever matched those Long Island Iced Teas since, either. Or is it that there's just nothing like your first.

Medical Tip: Enough Long Island Iced Teas will cure Jet Lag. (Little known fact.)

Oh, and if finding all these love notes in my suit case wasn't bad enough, Brent brought over a letter from her. This has stop.

28/06/1985 San Francisco

Hotel: Grand Central
Weather: Fine

We went down to the hotel Brent was staying at, the super swanky Palace Hotel on Montgmery St. It was right in the middle of town so kinda convenient. We couldn't find Brent so we did a bit of sightseeing.

We jumped the cable car and headed down to Fisherman's Wharf spent a few hours just wandering around. Checked out the the tall rigger at Hyde St Pier with Alcatraz in the back ground and checked out the shopping at Pier 39. Got asked if we were gay.

 We didn't know it at the time but this weekend was the big gay march and over here, a couple guys kicking back together, both with ear rings is pretty uncommon except.. in San Francisco around this time of year.
That does explain the odd questions regarding the seperate beds when we checked into the room last night.

Oh, and this far from home it's good to know you can still grab a Melbourne Tram.

Funny, there's never one in Elizabeth St when you need it.

27/06/1985 Las Vegas - San Francisco

Hotel: Victory Motel

Weather: Hot

Slept till 3:30pm. Got up, showered found yet another note. Would probably get over this homesickness if I wasn't constantly reminded of home. I'm really missing the girl more than I think I should be.

Had a great meal of steak and potatoes for $2. More free drinks, and some cheap drinks. Promotional chicks stand outside of each establishment handing out food and drink coupons. The concept being that for a $1 pizza you have to walk to the back of the gambling floor, threading your way through the stands of slot machines. If your not tempted to gamble, it's a very cheap existence. $1 mixed drinks, 99c shrimp cocktails, $1 hot dogs, $1 beers. Shrimp cocktails are still 99c today.

I could happily stay here for a while but we've got to get to San Francisco, I've arranged to meet Brent in SanFran, Bruce doesn't know.

It'll be 25 years before I return to Fremont street, downtown Las Vegas and it won't be till then that I discover that Fremont and the little row of casinos is not the famous Las Vegas strip. But I loved it anyway and thoroughly enjoyed these past couple of days.

Boarded the Greyhound at 4:00am bound for San Francisco. The bus ride's going to take all day and it's not all that comfortable but it can be interesting. You get to see the passing landscape and you can meet some interesting people if not witness some interesting people.
I remember trying to explain the game of cricket to a yank, "the first team goes in while a second team is out, and the team that's out tries to get the team that's in, out". This went on for hours, to this day I think he's sure Aussies are big on baseball and battle the Brits over the ashes of a burnt hey bail every couple of years. But it helped the miles go by.

Pulled into San Francisco around 7:00pm found a hotel room nearby and settled in for the night.

I left the room later, kinda unannounced and perhaps a bit suspiciously, I was trying to contact Brent but couldn't get hold of him. Finally told Bruce that we'd be meting Brent here in San Francisco.

26/06/1985 Las Vgas

Hotel: Victory Motel

Weather: Hot

We spotted a motel from the bus depot which was under the Plaza Hotel, so we walked across the road and booked in. We dumped our luggage in the room got changed and went our on the town. I immediately fell in love with the place. I thought it was fantastic.

Stayed out all night found staying here could be very cheap. A meal of steak and chips for $4.00. we sat at a bar for some time buying bourbon mixers for a buck a pop and every second shout the barman would give us, on the house.

We staggered home to our $19 a night room, just as dawn was breaking, there are no clocks here but figure it was around 5:30am.

Found another note last night.

25/06/1985 Santa Monica

Weather: 85F warn & sunny

Spent a couple of hours in the morning trying to recover yesterdays lost travellers cheque. Thomas Cook is a big British brand but not so well known in the US. Finally got that sorted, booked Greyhound to Las Vegas, booked out of hotel and now had a few hours to kill before boarding a bus to LA.

We grabbed a couple of beers, a bit o'lunch and hoofed it around the Santa Monica promenade and the pier.

Got to LA and Andrew found he'd lost his Greyhound pass. We'd purchased a 7 day Greyhound pass back home which was great idea. It allowed to jump buses when ever we felt like it with in a seven day period. All we had to do was arrive at the terminal and provided there were seats we just got on. But you had to have the original pass to collect that sectors ticket.
So far we're proving to be pretty crap travellers. Fortunately we'd had the smarts enough to make copies of all our travel documents and we were both carrying a copy of each others documents as well as our own. This proved to be our saviour on this day.

Finally we were under-way and arrived in Las Vegas in the dead of night at 12:50am.
Did I say the dead of night.

24/06/1985 Santa Monica

Weather: 85F warn & sunny

Got very little sleep, the bio-clock is completely out of whack and my thoughts are constantly on the girl back home.

Today we'll go to Disneyland. That should get us into the groove.

Found some instructions in the hotel lobby on how to get to dizzy land via public transport. We're on a pretty strict budget, the longer we can stretch out the money the longer we can stay away.

Somehow we completely messed up the instructions. Bus didn't come that we were waiting for or maybe we were even waiting on the wrong side of the road. We went back to hotel to re investigate those instructions and start over.

We finally got onto a bus, made our way into LA, changed buses and headed out to Anaheim.

Then, as we're preparing to alight the bus and pay our entrance into the theme park I found I'd lost my wallet. Don't know if I'd been pick-pocketed or it just fell out. But it was a complete downer. We went in anyway but just could not enjoy it so we left after an hour. 1 hour in Dizzyland 3 hours bus travel, $100 USD (AU$142) down . Bit of crap day.

23/06/1985 Los Angeles – Santa Monica

Hotel: Carmel, Santa Monica
Weather: 80F fine & sunny

Arrived LA. Customs questioned us a couple of times regarding money and travel plans, pretty sure we're suspected of wanting to work illegally. Started to get a bit travel anxious and felt like turning around to go home.

Tried hopelessly to change money. The Swiss Frank may well be a stable currency and in that way it's easy to keep a handle on your budget over a long stretch of time while other currencies our bouncing all over the place. But the average yank looks at you as if your talking with an accent.

The plan was to get a regular bus out to Santa Monica but exact change was required. Finally boarded a shuttle bus, $20.

1:41pm, we're exhausted, Andrews asleep and I've just found a love note from the girl back home stashed amongst my cloths in my suit case bringing on a severe bout of travel-anxiety.