Day 16 - San francisco

Today was the day we headed to San Francisco, yahoo. We slept in till 8 (usually up at 6 on a campground) and packed everything up and got ready to leave. We were ready by 9 so headed over to Curry village and bought a Yosemite bear bottle opener souvenir and some milk duds, mmm tasty.

Hit the road at 9.30ish with a long day of driving ahead of us. We were both keeping our eyes peeled for bears but saw none. Boohoo. Did see a forest fire though as we were leaving the national park, was fully under control though and there were just tonnes of firefighters sat around not doing a lot. Was really cool to actually see one up close and personal, couldn’t get any good snaps, were moving quite quick and was quite smoky.

From Road Trip USA

On the way to the interstate the fuel light popped up and informed us we had 50miles till empty, we were still pretty much in the middle of nowhere (think it was a national forest) and hadn't gone past any gas stations since leaving the NP. Drove past 2 which we pulled in at and upon closer inspection found that they were closed down and looked pretty run down. Luckily found one though not too far after so was quite a relief. $3.89 a gallon which was our most expensive yet, but rather that than get stuck on the side of the road in front of a bunch of crazy guys on Harley Davidson's.

After we had been driving on the interstate for a while I started to get desperate for a wee, the road surface suddenly decided it was time to get super bumpy and was full of BIG potholes. This did not help my situation and so we took the first exit we could find ( miles away) but luckily America is full of McDonalds so we found one and stopped and got a burger and a drink and I had a well deserved wee. Aaaaahhhhhh.

Hit the worst traffic of our journey so far on the way to San Fran, the queues for the exits to Sacramento were huge and was crawling until we past the exit. Also was bad traffic at the tolls to go on the bay bridge. We paid the $5 toll, mostly in quarters as we had a pot full of them in the car hehe. On the bridge we managed to get our first glance of San Fran and it looked awesome, could see Alcatraz and the golden gate bridge. As we actually got into the city I got very stressed out with the driving, ran a red light by accident and then blocked a lane trying to turn left at a green light, got honked at and had to jump another red light yeehar. We eventually made it to the hotel after a fair bit of stressing at around 3pm. Hotel looked gorgeous from the outside, classic san fran building. Checked in and brought all our bags up to the room, feels like home already and couldn’t be further from the tent we ~~slept~~ tried to sleep in last night. We then paid $20 for 24hours of parking and drove round the block to park.

After a much needed shower and “freshen up” we headed down to fisherman’s wharf to check it out and have a wander around. Really busy, headed straight for the Boudin bakery to have a look and disappointed to see no breakfast pizza on the menu! Still have soup in a roll though. Walked along to pier 39 to go look at the sea-lions, well some empty wooden floats that they usually sit on. Apparently they like it hot and go down south for their mating season, boohoo. Got some hot doughnuts and the smallest bottle of coke for the thirstiest people imaginable. $3 for 215ml.

Went ahead to board our boat to “The Rock”, was getting rather nippy now especially as we are used to the weather being above 100 most of the day, it was about 65 which is 50 less than the max we have experienced. After a thorough chilling and some great views we arrived on Alcatraz and followed the cool guide for a little while until we picked up our audio tours.

From Road Trip USA

We followed the audio tour and it was fascinating, really enjoyed it and would definitely say its a must do. After we finished the tour we dropped the equipment back off and headed to the gift shop to pick up a few things. Whilst we were there we saw a tour about the escape from Alcatraz in 1962 that was about to start so we managed to catch it just in time. It was great, me and Sarah were desperate to watch the movie starring Clint Eastwood "Escape from Alcatraz" based on the true story the guide was telling. Me and Sarah think that they did escape as they are still on America's most wanted list, and the FBI have been searching for 20 years and have found nothing major. On the boat back to San Francisco we got to see the sunset over the Rock

From Road Trip USA

There was a crazy french kid taking a million photos and practically whooping to himself every time he got a good one. FRENCH PEOPLE ARE WEIRD. Either that or he had ADHD...oops.

Walked back to the hotel and stopped off at Safeway to grab some tea, weird black dude in the shop not buying anything just trying to chat up any single lady he could. Also the checkout lady (maybe a lady, could have been a guy) was really odd, super frantic at packing bags and sniffed the receipts before she gave them back…We hurried home.

Off to sleep now so we can get up super early and have a full day exploring the city and get some good pics of the golden gate bridge.