Zookeeper's Lounge

You guys/girls will not see me much around the next couple of weeks
firts of all wednesday I'm going to rock werchter ( Metallica live 6_9 ( the moment I've been waiting for ) and KoRn, Muse, Lost Prophets, Monster Magnet ...) http://www.rockwerchter.be
then I'm headed off to SW USA for almost a month.
We're going to visit LA, San Fransisco, Monterey, Las Vegas, San Diego, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, ...

Oooo have fun in the West! You'll be in my neck of the woods! I can give you some ideas of what to do in San Francisco -

1. Ghirardelli Square. The best ice cream sundaes ever. They have a lot of different kinds and they're all good. You could make a meal out of them.

2. If you want more to eat go down on Pier 39 or that area. There's Fisherman's Wharf where you can get fresh fish or dungeoness crab plus the best thing (IMO) they have on Pier 39 is Clam Chowder in sourdough bread bowls. Mmmmmm...

3. You also might want to go to Alcatraz. That's of course the famous prison that's on an island next to San Francisco. You have to get on a boat to get out to it.

4. There is a fort near the San Francisco end of the Golden Gate Bridge. I forget what it's called but it's pretty cool. Lots of good history there to learn about.

5. The San Francisco Zoo. It's one of the best zoos that I have been to. It's not really super big but it's a nice zoo and they have a good variety of animals.

If you're going to go around the area of San Francisco other than the city itself:

6. The Oakland Zoo is a little bigger than the SF zoo. It's a really good zoo and they have a lot of cool critters like koalas. Their lion exhibit is nice and big for them too... etc...

7. Mt. Diablo State Park is really close to where I'm from. It's got a lot of nice recreational areas. They used to have a museum at the top but it was closed due to lack of funds. But I think you can still go up to the top. From that point on a clear day you have the second largest viewable area of any point in the world... only second to Mt. Kilamanjaro.

Other things to keep in mind in San Francisco is that unlike the other places you're going it starts getting cold around 5:00. So remember to pack a coat! Have fun Captain!

Have fun at the concert (shivers at the thought of the loud music) and the U.S. trip.

The name of the fort is Fort Point National Historic Site, which is a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The fort was there before the bridge was made. Now, the fort is in the shadows of the bridge.

Different people will have different favorites. For me, my favorites in the San Francisco area include Muir Woods National Monument, which is about a half hour northwest of the Golden Gate bridge. It has redwood trees. I loved going there shortly after sunrise on a weekend, before the visitor center opens. You can't find a more friendly group of nature loving people coming together to enjoy nature's beauty. It is named after John Muir, who was famous for showing various beautiful nature spots (including Yosemite) to President Teddy Roosevelt and also showing him how close the logging industry was getting to destroying these beautiful locations. Teddy Roosevelt, a gigantic nature lover himself, saw this and pushed Congress to preserve these areas as part of the National Park System.

John Muir's home is also a part of the National Park System. His home is at the John Muir National Historic Site, which is located in Martinez, northeast of San Francisco.

I also love Pinnacles National Monument, which is a couple hours southeast of San Francisco. It has unsual rock formations, caves (of the lava tube variety), and mountain hiking.

When I go to National Parks/Monuments/Historic Sites/ Recreation Areas, I like to buy a National Park Passport book. The book lists all the sites and also has blank pages. Each place has a free cancellation stamp that you can stamp into the book. It is a nice memory for trips.

Near LA, my favorite place is Disneyland. It is the best theme park in the world. I live in Orlando, which has Disney World. But Disneyland is even much better than any one of the Disney parks here.

San Diego contains my favorite zoo.

For Las Vegas, my favorite show is outside the Treasure Island casino. It has a battle between two ships. If you see it, be sure to stay around after the show and watch the resetting of things.

Again, have fun in everything you do!

Have a great time, Capt.! I think SL and Jay have said it all.

Have a great time! Unfortunately I can't really suggest where to visit seeing as I've never been to anywhere in America before but I'm sure SL and Jay's suggestions are great ones!

thx for the info
I've said it to my father
we might go to that fish restaurant because we are not going to eat burgers all the time

Fisherman's Wharf isn't a restaurant per se. It's an area of San Francisco near the bay where there are tons of places to get fish and crab both raw and cooked. You can just walk along there and see what you like. Or there are also several restaurants where you can sit down and order seafood. Anywhere near the harbor really. There are some nice places on Pier 39 (oh BTW if you go to the end of Pier 39 you can see tons and tons of California Sea Lions that rest on the floating platforms out there... absolutely free!) And near the marina there are the best places if you want clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl.

Have fun!

superlion wrote: There are some nice places on Pier 39 (oh BTW if you go to the end of Pier 39 you can see tons and tons of California Sea Lions that rest on the floating platforms out there... absolutely free!) And near the marina there are the best places if you want clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl.

nice, it's like in Cape Town harbor, only there sometimes male sealions enter restaurants

oh BTW Metallica was awesome!!!!!!! and so was KoRn, Muse but Metallica's show is the best I've ever seen.

ok tomorrow I'm leaving
see you guys back in august!

I'm back!
you guys sure have a beautifull country.
but right now I'm really exhausted because of the time difference :mellow:

Welcome back, Capt.!

Yes, there's a very big time difference between US and Europe. I just hope you liked it here, Capt. Glad to see you back!

Welcome back! Get rested up before telling us about the trip

gretz upon your return! glad you liked US

day 1 we flew from brussels to dublin and from there to LA, we arrived at 3 pm so we decided to visit hollywood.


day 2 we went to universal studios, wich was very cool. Ride of the mummy is really one of the best indoor RCs.

day 3 we've visited downtown LA and left LA driving north on the us 1
visiting Santa Barbara, Carmel, 17 mile drive and Monterey

day 4 we went further north to San Fransisco and visited Stanford university

day 5 San Fransisco: downtown, fishersman warf ( noisy sealions ), ....

day 6 we went from San Fransisco to Yosemite and visited some thing along the route

day 7 yosemite national park: if you ask me it's one of the most beautifull forests, we went to a ranger program about bears and did some walks but we could not go to glacier point because of a wildfire

day 8 one of the hottest: death valley

day 9 first part of the day: death valley then we went to las vegas and visited red rock canyon along the route. We visited Las Vegas that evening. Those casinos are big really big!

day 10 we drove to bryce canyon

day 11 we visited bryce canyon

then we went to zion national park, durango, moab (arches national park),mesa verde national park, page ( glen canyon ), flagstaff (grand canyon: really nice, we've also watched the imax film), prescott, palm springs

then we went to san diego: wich in my opinion is the nicest city I've seen and especially seaport village. The next day we went to seaworld: really good shows and artic exhibits. the last day we drove from San Diego back to LA and took the plane back home.

remarks:
1.the list of visited state parks is to long to mention but we've visited pretty much everything
2. we didn't had the time to visit the 'world famous' san diego zoo