Yosemite to San Francisco

After a restless night we took some time to get going and I put paxyl all over Nicole as we'd run out of calomine. Headed off and decided we'd wait until Merced for breakfast. A pretty dead place on a Sunday but we pulled up at Wendys. I was determined we'd all start eating a little healthier, but some misinterpretation of the menu meant we ate a worse meal than usual. Next time it'll have to be salads all round. Back on the road we took 99 north. We were now driving through a lot more populated areas, but highly rural. Lots of crops, cows and so on. There seemed to be an enormous amount of yellow dead looking grass around. Countryside very flat and reminded Pete of Windsor a bit.

Followed 99 northwest to Modesto then 132 west. Still very rural, lots of crops. This one road just went for miles without turning. Finally got onto I-560. We planned to follow it right up to Oakland, then go up and around through San Rafael, across San Rafael bridge and come into San Francisco from the north across Golden Gate.

As we were going along 450 around Livermore, we came across hundreds of windmills. They were just in rows and rows on hills, still very yellow and dry and looked quite bizarre. Obviously a wind generated power system. I'm sure I'd seen it on Beyond 2000.

The kids were getting restless so we pulled off at Sausalito and got out, had a walk around and an ice cream. Had a nice view of the city and Alcatraz. Went to drive across the bridge and got caught in a gigantic traffic jam. Well it was Sunday afternoon, but there had also been an accident on the bridge. Stopped at the other side to photograph the bridge. Also stopped at Fort Point where we walked onto the bridge almost up to the first pylon. The suspension cables looked like pipes and there was a sample for us to look at. 27,000 wires in each cable. After a quick look in the gift shop we hopped back in the car to look for the Hotel Lombard in Geary Street.

It was an old building but nicely furnished and spacious for us. We were in 2 adjoining rooms. The boards of the floor were quite uneven and creaky below the carpet, probably the result of weathering the odd earthquake or two. We had to pay for valet parking, and decided to catch public transport the next day. We couldn't all go up in the lift together as he told us it was a bit old!

Unpacked and changed for dinner. We just walked up to Van Ness Avenue, knowing there was a Hard Rock Cafe along it. We passed several other eateries, but decided against the one hour wait at the HRC and settled for the Tumbleweed Cafe. Food quite nice.Read more