English Pub With Double Decker Bus, Giant Pumpkin
Half Moon Bay, California
The sun never sets on British-style pubs where you can get your fix of bangers and mash and a pint.
A union jack flag flutters along the California coast at the intensely British-themed Cameron's Pub. Outside there's a London double-decker bus and taxi, a red phone booth, a stocks and pillory, and other touches of England. A British lion quaffs a pint.
The bus is open for exploration as the World's Only Double Decker Smoking Bus.
Owner Cameron Palmer, the son of a Scotsman, continues to add garish touches of fantasy England to his family attraction. As a kid growing up in the U.S., he accumulated thousands of (empty) beer cans of every brand and label. The 20,000+ collection is stacked and displayed over the bar (recognized as the "Largest Collection of Beer Cans in a Pub," we are told by the barkeep).
The 100-year-old building housing the inn has its own colorful history, including stints as a brothel and site of a couple of sordid murders in the 1930s. Cameron's maintains a few rooms above the pub for overnight guests -- in this case, B&B stands for Bed and Beverage, because they "don't do breakfast." When we visited, Palmer was in the middle of adding a larger/normal hotel on the property adjacent to the pub.
Half Moon Bay conducts an annual Pumpkin Festival, which might explain the incongruity of a giant pumpkin beneath the sign for Cameron's Inn. It's a record-breaker too; at over 5 tons, it's the World's Largest Sculpted Pumpkin, created by Peter Hazel, according to the accompanying sign.