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Ian Rambles
San Francisco was fun. Going uphill was easy with the
automatic gearbox taking all the potential drama out
of the hill start needed at every stop sign. Going downhill,
the car felt as if it was close to grounding both ends
as the hill levelled out then, approaching the start
of the next hill the road disappears from view - and
could as easily be a cliff !!!
Fiona's Journal
We did as planned and took Highway 101 to San Francisco
stopping for brunch at a rather wonderful restaurant
called Mimi's. It had a sort of New Orleans, French
feel about it and served memorable breakfasts. I had
scrambled egg, and really good smoked bacon, and cinnamon
and raisin French Toast with maple syrup and whipped
cream all on the same plate! And the coffee was fantastic
and strong and kept being topped up. For the first time
since we have been here we said yes to a doggy bag because
it was just too good to leave behind.
We reached San Francisco about midday and ploughed
through the centre of the city and out onto Fisherman's
Wharf. We pulled into a little roadside car park where
the cars are packed in so tight, and with no spaces
between the rows, that there are slim parking attendants
to park your car for you. We browsed around the tourist-trap
gift shops and bought post cards and a rather nice little
leather wallet for George, in the vain hope that he
will stop shoving notes into his swimming trunks pocket
and then going swimming with them. It is the only use
we have made of motel hair dryers – drying Georges
pocket money!
We ended up in the very wonderful “Musee Mechanique”
which was packed with coin operated mechanical devices,
amusement arcade games, dioramas, moving models and
some of the earlier video games. The whole collection
dated from the 1920's to about the 1990's and many of
the games needed only a quarter (equivalent to 12.5
English pence) to get 5 or 10 minutes entertainment,
so it was very good value with no entrance fee and kept
the boys amused for ages. We had to drag them away in
the end.
Back at the carpark a cheery young lad skillfully shuffled
cars about and extracted ours from the back row and
off we went. We had huge fun going up and down the ridiculously
steep streets of San Francisco, that you see in all
films set in that city. They are even more precipitous
in real life than they look on screen, I guessed 45
degrees, Ian said 40 degrees. At one point where our
road was blocked off Arthur said “Go left here,
I know this bit from one of my computer games.”
and he was right too!
After that excitement we headed out across the Golden
Gate Bridge, all of us saying how much we liked this
city from our short acquaintance with it. We continued
North on 101 for a bit and then cut West through the
Rockies on Mountain View Road. This was another fun-to-drive,
mountain road only this time it took us through soaring
redwood forests and along the side of deep wooded gorges.
Once back on Pacific Highway One we soon reached our
KOA campsite in Manchester, no less! We are booked in
for three nights and George, in particular is looking
forward to “staying put” for a couple of days.
Arthur's Log:
Just something i have been pondering, why don't
Americans have chip and pin? I mean in England I walk
into any shop put my card in a slot hit my 4 digit number
into the key pad and the money comes straight out my
bank account. But here you have to sign in three different
places and wait a few minutes for to check them all.
Arived where we would stay for 3 days.
George's Musings
The roads were awesome - I wish I had a bike. The arcade
games were fun and inexpensive.
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