Something we wish we HAD eaten...

On our last day in San Francisco the Fairmont Gingerbread House was formally unveiled for the holiday season. They'd been working on it all week, and each time we walked through the lobby our mouths watered at the scent of gingerbread that was wafting throughout. It smelt even more incredible than it looked. And it looked pretty incredible.

Hansel and Gretel eat your heart out

Daniel looking not at all suspicious

This twenty-foot-high confection contains 7500 gingerbread bricks and 1200 pounds of icing. It's decorated with 650 pounds of colourful candy pieces. Unfortunately we didn't get to sample it, and by the time Christmas has come and gone I highly doubt it will be edible. Such a waste!

San Fran: A Day on the Town

As hard as it was to tear ourselves away from our view, we decided we must find the strength to do so. We managed to spend a whole day out and about in San Francisco. We started by walking and then walked some more, and then a little bit further - all over this city. If you've been here, you know what an achievement this is. San Francisco resembles the Himalayas.

Steep as Steep

That angle may not look too bad, but these streets are hundreds of meters long at that gradient. It hurts. And it hurts even more the next day. After walking through Chinatown - it's the largest outside of Asia - and admiring the busy markets and festive lanterns hanging across the streets, we worked our way down to the Embarcadero Center. It's a strip of shops that begin near the waterfront and it was also where Occupy San Francisco was camped. Alas, we were not there to revolt against capitalism but to embrace it. And go ice skating.

Holding on for dear life

I've been on a few outdoor rinks in my time, the first at Marble Arch in London when I was a teenager. I love them and the festive feelings they espouse. If you ever went skating at the long-gone Mirrabooka rink then you'll remember how the condensation would drip from the roof, leaving holes in the ice that would eventually refreeze and grow into bumps. You don't get that problem at an outdoor rink. Instead you get hundreds of small children and their parents, all clutching the edge while trying to walk (the worst thing you can do on skates) and inevitably introducing their bum to the ice.

On our feet

Once our ankles were sufficiently painful we continued to walk along the waterfront, right around to Fisherman's Wharf. It was craaaaaap. Mum said that it was a must see and when she visited (back in the dark ages) it was wonderful. Now it's nothing more than a tourist trap with the obligatory Bubba Gump Shrimp Co restaurant, Ripley's Believe It or Not and a wax museum. Americans seem to actually think these are valid tourist attractions. There was nothing of any real cultural value at Fisherman's Wharf, though you could get a good view of Alcatraz from one of the docks. I think it must been because we've seen so many amazing things and been to so many incredible places, but we just have no time for kitschy tourist "attractions" anymore. We're way too high brow. Fo' rilla.

Unfortunately, the famed cable cars felt a little like a tourist trap. They're expensive to ride and we were going to have to queue for nearly an hour to get on one that would take us back to our hotel - I'm assuming the wait was because of the holiday season madness. We stupidly decided to walk back to the top of Nob Mountain, and we felt like Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay when we finally made it back.

Things We Wish We'd Never Eaten #6: Room Service

Given that we were treating our week in San Fran as a honeymoon, we went a bit wild. With room service. Each morning we breakfasted by the window in our room. Why wouldn't you? There was no view from the restaurant downstairs. We were really lucky actually, and the first few days were incredibly clear. There was a lot of fog later in the week, but it was equally gorgeous in its own way.

Eggs Benedict with a swimming pool full of hollandaise

The photo above shows some of the best eggs benny I've ever had, and the biggest bowl of hollandaise I've ever seen. Also, all the breakfasts in America come with potatoes. It's a bit weird really. Most mornings we indulged in the Fairmont Spa Breakfast. It came with a fruit smoothie, tea or coffee, an egg-white and vegetable omelette, breads, granola, yoghurt and fresh berries. Yummm.

The Spa Breakfast

The room service desserts also deserve a mention and a picture. Below is some lemon and raspberry concoction of pure deliciousness. Notice the fancy cutlery.

Dessert of the Gods

I'll finish with a funny story that's not technically related to room service. Thanksgiving was the Thursday, and although we'd already decided to eat at the hotel we left it until Wednesday to enquire about a booking. Daniel rang to see if we could reserve a table at the buffet.
"I'm sorry, we're fully booked" the guy on the phone said, sounding bored.
Daniel asked "are there seats available for the set menu, then, by any chance?
"No, they're booked out too."
"Oh ok, never mind, thanky--..."
The guy interrupted him. "Are you a guest of the hotel? You're in room, oh, 2303? Oh, Mr Kippin?"
"Yes."
"Umm, let me talk to my boss and I'll call you back, Sir."
His boss rang us back five minutes later and said they could seat us at whatever time we wished. It was nice to be on the receiving end of some reverse discrimination. We filled our bellies with beet carpaccio, cauliflower soup, pumpkin risotto, scallops, turkey and pumpkin pies for dessert, and magicked away a bottle of very nice red wine in the process.

A Very Good View of San Francisco

San Francisco marked the half-way point of our trip around America. It was also the week of Thanksgiving and we hadn't spent more than three nights in one place up to that point. We were likely to be exhausted. Knowing all this in advance we decided to splurge, to treat ourselves a little in a style befitting a honeymoon.

The Fairmont is to San Francisco what the Savoy is to London. It sits atop Nob Hill, which should really be called Nob Mountain, and has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 2002. In fact, the United Nations Charter was drafted at the Fairmont in 1945. The famed Penthouse Suite has been the San Fransisco residence for every U.S. president since William Howard Taft. It's simply iconic, and a perfect choice for a honeymoon.

The Fairmont Hotel

We decided to counter all of our Motel 6 rooms by booking a Tower Suite for six nights, pulling the honeymoon card in the hope they would look after us. And they did. There are two parts to the hotel. The main building is eight stories high, but the Presidential Suite occupies the whole top floor. Then there's the tower, which was added in the sixties. It has twenty-four stories, but the very top one is a function room with its own elevator. Our room was on the twenty-third floor. I tell you what, there's nothing like getting in an elevator with some pompous old geezer who looks down his nose at your sneakers, waiting for him to press the button to his mid-level floor and then smiling at him while selecting the highest floor on the panel. Joy.

The room was set up for our arrival, with the lights on and classic Christmas music playing softly. It was nearly sunset and with one look at the view we realised we weren't going to see much of San Francisco. At least not up close. 

From the Golden Gate to Alcatraz

From Alcatraz to Embarcadero

I remember Mum or Dad asking me during a phone call why we weren't out and about seeing the sights, to which we replied that we could see them all from our room. The inside of our room was equally lovely. Just being able to sit on a couch was luxury enough, let alone being able unpack all our stuff. We even had our very own entrance hallway. The bathroom was marble and there was a separate area with a dressing table. I've always wanted a dressing table.

Apologies for the mess, but I think it took us all of ten minutes to spread our stuff everywhere. It took us a hell of a lot longer to pack it all up at the end of the week, but it was so worth it.

Accommodation

From Moab we drove back to Las Vegas, leaving before the sun came up and finding ourselves in snow when it did. If my memory is correct, the highest elevation sign I saw read 7886 feet above sea level. Upon arriving in Las Vegas we returned our trusty hire car - a sad moment. We then boarded a rather small plane for our flight to San Francisco. Because we hadn't checked in online early enough, Daniel and I were seated at opposite ends of the plane. I think it was the first hour we've spent apart during this trip.

Many of you may already know where we stayed in San Fran, so I feel this post is a necessary precursor - a caveat of sorts. Apart from in the big cities, which are understandably more expensive, we've been staying mainly in roadside inns and motels. These do exist in the big cities, but they tend to be located in less than savoury areas or too far out to be convenient. A number of motel chains exist in America, and we've been frequenting Motel 6s and Super 8s. I've already mentioned a number of the nice places we've stayed, but I've not really mentioned these.

They cost anywhere from $40 to $60 a night, depending on the location and whether they've been renovated since the 1980s. They're as sparse as a motel room can be. When there's fresh air in the rooms they're fine, and often bigger than your usual hotel room. The problem is that most of them smell like somebody has smoked themselves to death inside, and that's in the non-smoking rooms. In any case, they've been doing wonders for our immune systems. We're certain that the Motel 6s are solely responsible for the fact we haven't (yet) been sick.

We've stayed in dozens of motel rooms, yet none of our ten thousand photographs document them. I would only have needed to show you one photo, as all the rooms of each chain are exactly the same. Ineptitude at its finest. What I really wanted you to see was the infamous Motel 6 bedspread. They look like someone ate a rainbow and then threw it up on the bed. Sometimes they smell that way too. We were well and truly ready for San Francisco.

Arches National Park

Now that our tire was fixed we were good to go and see the true reason we came to Moab - Arches National Park. We got back from our ride around 1430, and we scoffed down a late lunch. Subway never tasted so good. There were only a few hours of light left, but we were excited to explore Arches in the late afternoon sun. More than 2000 natural sandstone arches can be found within the park, even though 43 have collapsed since 1970.

The arches themselves are so beautiful but there are also other rock formations, petrified sand dunes and great views of the La Sal mountains. To get into the park you wind up through some cliffs, and you get a good look at Moab. There are a few hiking trails and campgrounds, but both the desert ecosystem and the rock structures are delicate and activities are carefully regulated. In 2006 a climber scaled Delicate Arch, and doing so has been explicitly banned since.

Moab from the entry to Arches NP

Arches was wonderful to see, but it's no Olympic National Park. The mountain biking was definitely the highlight of the day. We finally did some laundry that evening, and afterwards we debated driving through the night to get to the Grand Canyon at sunrise for a proper look. With our tire fixed we would have been able to make it, but we eventually decided not to try. A wise choice I think, even though it would have made for a great story.

Daniel's Two-Wheeled Revenge

Our day in Moab was busy busy busy. After driving back from Monticello with a patched tire, much more quickly than we'd driven there, we went straight to the Moab Adventure Centre. Moab is a small town but it plays host to many thrill-seeking tourists, predominantly during spring and the fall. There's something to whet everybody's appetite in Moab, whether it be 4WD-ing, dirt biking, kayaking, canyoneering, rock climbing or mountain biking. Daniel had booked us in for mountain biking and, much to my chagrin, he hadn't chosen the easiest trail. I was terrified, and he seemed pretty pleased with himself. I'm certain it was payback for the horse riding.

When our guide arrived she announced that we had her all to ourselves. Our timing has been excellent this trip - we've missed peak season but not yet been exposed to true winter weather. She drove us out to Dead Horse Point State Park and we chatted along the way. She'd been born in Salt Lake City but had got out of Utah as soon as she was old enough and never planned to come back. Then her husband taught her how to mountain bike and they began spending each spring in Moab, eventually settling permanently. According to her, Moab doesn't really feel like Utah.

The trail we were supposedly going to be riding (or trying to ride) took us along the edge of Canyonlands National Park, Utah's answer to the Grand Canyon. There were two options. The first was a relatively simple four mile loop. The second was a nine mile loop, but she said she doesn't take many people along that one. The first couple of miles overlapped, so we'd be able to make a decision once we knew how we were going to handle it.

The Trail

The view (and the ride itself) was breathtaking. Unfortunately that meant the view was also extremely distracting, and we often stopped to take it all in. We could see across the Canyonlands to the snow-covered La Sal Mountains. At one point we even crawled to a cliff edge on our bellies and made the mistake of looking down over the drop. Again, our timing was good as we'd backed off a few minutes before the wind picked up.

Don't look down...

Canyonlands and the La Sal Mountains

I'm running out of adjectives, and I need to get more creative with them. The [insert appropriate adjective here] expanse of the Canyonlands made us realise something very sad. I don't think we got the full impact of the Grand Canyon on our helicopter trip. What we saw was nowhere near as grand as the Canyonlands, and was probably just an easy tick of a box for lazy tourists. Making it even worse, we'd been only an hour from the main Grand Canyon lookout on our drive from Las Vegas to Monument Valley. We hadn't really realised because we weren't organised and were driving to a GPS, not a map, and insofar as we were aware of it, we weren't sure if our tire would hold out or if we had the time. It's probably the biggest stuff-up of the trip so far. Bummer.

The riding itself was actually quite enjoyable, especially once we settled into it. Daniel looked as pleased as punch ... until he was the first one to stack it. Daniel insists that he didn't fall off, but I think being tangled up in the bike on the ground counts. I admit, I also came a cropper, but I managed to land on my feet and run it out. Pure talent.

Runnin' Rebels Represent

Nonetheless, our guide seemed happy with our sick skillz and we continued on the nine mile loop. At this point I was a wheezing mess and kept holding the other two up. It might have had something to do with the altitude - in any case the cold wind certainly didn't help. I think it was the first asthma attack I've had, and given that it was almost halfway through the trip I don't think it's a bad effort. After nearly two hours on the bike I could barely walk. Once the jelly-legs disappeared, though, the sense of achievement arrived.