San Francisco, California

To say I was looking forward to reaching San Francisco is an understatement.  3000 miles in 10 days back from Alaska is a lot of driving in anyone's book, let alone in a bus, and on roads that make you feel like you've bought a season ticket for the Nemesis roller coaster.  The mental image of the San Francisco skyline replacing the glaciers and evergreens of the Alaska Highway kept us going over those very long days!

I was also looking forward to catching up with Marcus, my friend of about 14 years who was coming over from the UK.  I thought I would continue the long tradition of dragging him to ridiculous places in the name of having a laugh, although hopefully this time would be a bit more glamorous; in the old days it was to dubious DJing gigs in the arse-end of nowhere with no incentive but a few cans of Red Stripe and the prospect of a greasy fry-up at the services on the way home.

We got within about 300 miles of SF and had a bit of time to spare before Marcus arrived, so there was light at the end of the tunnel.  I'd spent weeks Skyping him from various garages in Alaska, nervously exclaiming "Yeah mate, we'll make it, we're just about to leave!", at the same time wondering when someone was going to put the wheels back on the RV and whether I should be concerned that the mechanic was looking at one of the pieces of our suspension the way Tony Robinson from Time Team looks at a 2000 year old broken relic he's just dug out of the ground.

At one point, as I watched the snow start falling outside, I wondered whether Marcus had ever considered a trip to the Arctic instead....

Fortunately, it didn't come to that.  We arrived in SF on October 1st and planted ourselves at a rest area right at the end of the Golden Gate Bridge.  We were extra-careful when planning this leg of the trip; San Francisco is NOT a city you want to drive one of these things around, for reasons that will become clear.  Also, the state of California is a lot less RV-friendly than we expected, so none of the Walmarts in the area allow overnight parking.  Sharon found some info online about this rest area and what a find it turned out to be!

The signs in the rest area say you can stay a maximum of 8 hours.  This is not enforced by the police, but instead something called a "California Peace Officer".  I can't quite work out whether these are the equivalent of the "Community Support Officers" we have back home, who tend to look a bit special and don't actually have any power, or if it's some kind of ironic euphemism, like a Peacekeeper missile.  We chanced it on the basis that they probably wouldn't be at work anyway due to the government shutdown.

After a couple of quick photos of the sunrise over the bay, we left our spot fairly early the next day to go and pick up some mail.  We have a mail holding/forwarding facility while we're out here, so whenever we're staying in one place for a few days I arrange to get it all sent to a nearby post office and collect it from there.

This time, the post office happened to be right next to a prison.  I literally had to drive right up to the prison gate and then wedge the RV against the wall just to the right.  This prompted a slightly over-zealous guard to come over and tell me I couldn't park there.  He relented when I convinced him that I was simply picking up mail and wasn't actually the worst getaway driver ever staging a prison break in the slowest vehicle I could find.

Chores done, we went to check in at our digs for the next few days.  We thought we'd splash out on a proper RV park by the sea for the first few days in nearby Pacifico.

Not knowing how suitable the airport was for RVs, I went to collect Marcus in a taxi.  On the way back, we did our best to catch up while the driver seemingly reenacted the car chase scene from Bullitt.

Marcus brought me up to speed on the antics of the various crazy people on his flight, including a woman who became so belligerent with the staff and her long-suffering husband that she started throwing food around the cabin.

Something bizarre happens pretty much every time Marcus goes away anywhere, so the story of the nutcase with the weaponised bread rolls didn't surprise me in the slightest.  In fact, this time the entire US government closed down in anticipation of his arrival, so well done mate!  This meant no visit to Alcatraz and no Yosemite National Park, but we still had plenty to occupy us.

On our first full day in San Fran, we all took the BART (their public rail system) into the city and alighted right in the middle of downtown.  The main shopping district bears a heavy resemblance to New York, which is surprising as they're very different cities:

After a while of perusing Macy's and Bloomingdales (no doubt annoying the staff by loudly and repeatedly quoting "My mom calls it Bloomies!" from Friends), we jumped on a tram and headed in the direction of Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39.

Getting a tram in SF is an essential tourist activity and, judging by the prices, they know it.  $6 each for about a mile!  We probably should have just made a run for it - if I know anything about tram engineering.... OK fine, I don't, but they seem to have a fairly limited range of movement; they're hardly going to chase you down an alleyway.  You'd be fine as long as you didn't do that annoying thing they do in movies like Prometheus, where they run in the same direction as whatever's chasing them instead of just moving slightly to the side.

We stopped off at Lombard Street, famous for being one of the most crooked streets in the world.  It's built on a 40 degree slope with eight switchbacks crammed in:

Nearly as bad as some of the roads I've had to drive the RV on!

In fact, the steep hills are a defining characteristic of San Francisco.  There's actually some kind of city ordinance which dictates that people should turn their wheels in when they park so that if their parking brake fails, they roll into the curb instead of causing a pile-up in the road.

Feeling hungry, we next headed over to Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39.  Painting a different picture of San Francisco life to the bustle of downtown, the water's edge was adorned by fishing boats moored up after supplying the catch of the day to the various restaurants clustered around the wharf and along the pier.

While on the search for somewhere to eat, we came across a Zoltar machine on the pier:

Yep, it's the fortune-telling machine from the movie "Big".  Marcus played it but unfortunately it had run out of fortune cards.  Plus he failed to grow up at all during the rest of the trip, so I can only assume it was faulty...

The next day, Sharon's feet were killing and she didn't want to go back into town, which can only mean one thing.... she needs comfier shoes.  OK two things - the shoe thing, plus: Lads on tour!

Marcus and I went back into the city and decided to get off the bus at a different stop.  After walking past two smackheads helping each other shoot up in an alleyway and a man having a conversation with a traffic light, we figured we'd probably ended up in the wrong part of town.

After a beer or two, we drifted back towards the Fisherman's Wharf area, partly because we liked it there and also because I'd spotted an In N Out Burger there the day before.  For anyone not familiar, In N Out is a fast food chain which, ironically, is probably most famous for its "secret" menu which is not displayed in store.  Amongst other things, this includes "animal style" burgers and fries, which are cooked with peppers, onions, mustard and extra dressing.

It also used to be the case that you could have as many burgers and cheese slices as you want in one bun.  One famous case involved a "100x100" (100 burgers and 100 cheese slices!).  When we went in I was slightly disappointed to be told that they only do up to a 4x4 these days.  My heart, on the other hand, virtually skipped a beat in relief at this news.

Marcus was impressed: "It's garbage.... but it's the best garbage in the world!". We went for another beer to calm the meat-sweats before heading back to the RV.

The next morning we moved to Sausalito, a very pretty and upmarket neighbouring town of San Francisco.  After failing miserably to find anywhere official to park the RV, we stopped at the local yacht club, which seemed to have an abundance of space in its "members only" car park.  Armed with the most polite versions of our British accents we could muster, we went to the office to see if we could blag a night.  The woman who worked there wasn't getting the message, but a local overheard us and informed us that the car park is patrolled by the harbourmaster, who didn't work on weekends.  Good enough - looks like we'd found our base for the night!

Marcus had a slightly more upmarket dining suggestion for the evening than the previous night's orgy of ground meat and inexplicably yellow cheese:  a Portuguese restaurant called "Grubstake" that someone back home had recommended.

Tucked out of the way on the edge of town, as a tourist you'd probably never discover it for yourself without a bit of local knowledge.  We had some amazing steaks washed down with good beer and wine, and got talking to a great couple called Joe and Zue who lived upstate in wine country, but seemed to be regulars at the restaurant and knew the owners.

We stayed to chat for a while and they ended up very generously giving us a ride back to Sausalito afterwards, with a quick stop on the way to get some more pics from the Golden Gate Bridge at night:

Always good to meet new friends and we'll definitely be in touch the next time we come back to San Francisco.  That was a great night and rounded off our time in the city perfectly.

The next day, with US Congress still trying to agree on who was going to pick up all the toys they'd angrily strewn all over the Whitehouse lawn, our plans to visit Alcatraz and Yosemite were still on hold.  We decided instead to drive down the coast towards Big Sur, a famously beautiful stretch of California coastline.

The pictures from the drive really speak for themselves:

We stopped for a couple of nights at Sunset Beach, which we had entirely to ourselves:

We next reached the comparative civilisation of Santa Cruz.  It seemed like a fairly typical seaside town (Marcus compared it to Blackpool - still not sure whether that's an insult or a compliment) with a pier lined with shops and bars and some kind of fairground which was closed for the season.  There was also an arcade with classic games from our youth like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Simpsons, and even more classic games I'm obviously far too young to remember, like Donkey Kong and Star Wars.  No Golden Axe though, to my disappointment!

We had a quick drink at a bar on the pier, followed by another swift one and a few more sneaky ones, the cumulative effect of which was that 5 hours later we were all wandering the pier, smashed on cocktails and being massively entertained by three sea lions that had flopped themselves onto one of the jetties and started serenading us.

A couple more nights of putting the world to rights and before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye to Marcus.  I'd decided the airport looked OK to drive to in the RV, but space was tight by the departures entrance, so I pulled up out front and we said some quick goodbyes and fairly unceremoniously bundled him out of the coach on to the pavement.  Having driven past In N Out Burger again on the way in, Sharon and I decided we should really go straight back there and have another 4x4 each in his honour.  Kind of a 4-burger salute, if you will!

This was where we left the San Francisco Bay area to drive further down Big Sur before heading inland towards Yosemite.  More amazing coastal views...

...and somehow we ended up helping someone break into a car that they had apparently locked their keys in.  We were certainly equipped for the job and when it became clear that he wasn't going to have any luck with the old "coat hanger down the window" trick, he opted for the much more fun "brute force" method with a hammer.

Random people have helped us out a lot in our various hours of need while we've been here, so it was nice to be able to return the favour.  And I'm at least 70% sure that it was actually his car, so that's good too.

On to Yosemite!