This was our first full day on PCH and we decided to have a ‘rest’ day … with 9km walking around San Francisco including Pier 39 and Alcatraz.
![Alcatraz Island](https://www.bluesbigtrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2560-RHMP-0772-150x150.jpeg)
![Alcatraz Cell](https://www.bluesbigtrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/IMG_1048-150x150.jpeg)
![Dodgy People](https://www.bluesbigtrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/IMG_1050-150x150.jpeg)
![Pier 39](https://www.bluesbigtrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/IMG_1077-150x150.jpeg)
![Getting Crabby](https://www.bluesbigtrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/IMG_1067-150x150.jpeg)
![Pier 39](https://www.bluesbigtrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/IMG_1070-150x150.jpeg)
After a comfy limo dash in the morning we were soon enjoying champagne and plant-based curries before our flight in the British Airways B gate lounge at Heathrow Terminal 5.
A short while later, we were on the plane and just as I’d got everything in its place (and a place for everything), Alison demanded we swop seats. Citizen’s Divorce already enacted. And I wondered where all my demons should go…
Once we landed at San Francisco it was off to collect our pre-booked car from Hertz. An absolute nightmare it was too with Hertz, who didn’t have our car when we arrived. After an hour’s arguing with them, they palmed a Florida-registered 5.0L V8 Mustang convertible off on us instead of the Camaro SS Convertible we’d ordered and indeed emailed about earlier that week.
Once we eventually got to the Riu Plaza Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, it was time for a gin and kebab as it was 5am UK time.
British Airways were being a nightmare before we were due to fly: despite booking our Business Class flights many months earlier, a month before flying, BA emailed us to tell us they’d cancelled our flights from London Heathrow to San Francisco.
When we’d been trying to fly out to Corralejo to move into our place out there in 2020 and 2021, the UK and Spanish governments had been opening up and locking down and easyJet were cancelling flights, so I’d become adept at moving flights and amending travel arrangements, so I was straight back online to look at alternatives, finding that BA had flights later the same day. Not ideal, but beggars can’t be choosers. I changed the car reservation with Hertz, the limousine booking with Addison Lee and sat back to make sure our COVID-19 PCR test bookings would also still work.
Later the same day, British Airways then cancelled our return flights from San Diego to London. This was more of an issue, because it meant I had to extend the car hire and the hotel. The first would not work, and the hotel? Not so much as it was fully booked, so we decided to leave the car hire as it was and book ourselves into a hotel near the airport for the extra night to suit our flights home a day later. Thankfully BA ended up paying for the hotel as compensation for the flight delay.
Well 10 years after doing my Route 66 trip on a Harley in August 2012 to celebrate being 50, I’m back with another plan for my 60th birthday (and to celebrate still being alive after my little incident in 2019): Pacific Coast Highway, North to South during summer 2022.
We fly out business class to San Francisco, collect a Chevrolet Camaro SS Convertible and then drive off to the Fisherman’s Wharf area of San Fran for a couple of nights (and a trip to Alcatraz), before we head off down California SR 1 with stays along the way in some of the coolest hotels we could find.
We stop off en route for a few days in Downtown LA during which time we’ll be popping in to the Members’ area in the Bike Shed Motorcycle Club’s LA clubhouse for drinks and food.
We end up with a couple of nights in San Diego before we fly back in Club World again back to the UK.
It’s all booked, so watch this space!
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