It was a kinda help yourself breakfast at the Rodeway Inn... we had to go to reception and choose what we wanted to eat, put it on a tray and take it back to the room! So it was fruit, toasted bagel (for Jimmy), sticky bun (for Val) and a cup of coffee and tea. By 8:15 am we were on our way for leg 2 of our journey north.
We got a good start up the west coast of California passing by such places as Carmel and Monterey. We stopped off in Monterey, and found ourselves at another McDonalds so we fortified ourselves with a burger and milkshake each. We didn't have time to explore Monterey but it seems like a very popular seaside resort with losts of water sports. There were lots of fabulous views (some a little like Scotland) as we drove along the Big Sur - wow! The road was often very winding and perilously close to the cliff edge but fortunately we were on the inside with the sheer drops mostly to our left on the other side of the road.
We made it to Santa Cruz without problem, but spent a frustratingly long time trying to re-connect to the Highway number 1. We went around the city a few times trying different routes pointing to Highway 1 North... but we discovered that in Santa Cruz roadsign arrows pointing left don't necessarily mean turn left... they can also mean go straight on!
Thankful to have successfully managed our way out of Santa Cruz we drove for a while before seeing a few helicopters swarming around - in fact they were scooping up water and dropping it on the forest fires which have been raging through the area. Luckily, the firest hadn't reached far enough west to close Highway 1 although we did see some blackened tree trunks not very far too our right.
We stopped in Half Moon Bay at a most delightful watering hole which was a combination of wine bar, deli and cafe set back from the road in a newly built one street shopping mall modelled on the typical main street in old American western films (it even had an old railway caboose in the yard, but no engineer... and no cowboys).
Then came the hard bit as our destination was a Rodeway Inn in downtown San Francisco. From what had been mostly two way traffic we suddenly found ourselves on a three lane highway which quickly became seven lanes splitting off in all directions. The sat nav coped reasonably well and, with only a couple of missed turns we made it through... phew!
We had booked this particular motel as it seemed reasonably close to the main highways and it has guaranteed parking for guests. It turns out that we've ended up in a pretty undesirable part of the city. Richard was staying with a friend in San Francisco, so we met up for a brief chat and she told us of a few OK places nearby - but she also warned us not to talk to anyone on our way back later, and to keep tight hold of each other... ooh err... it was a no-brainer that we just grab a quick bite to eat and head on back before dark.
Then we worked our way through emails, blogs (including this one!), MySpace, Facebook... all the usual stuff as the high speed wifi internet connection was working well. Jimmy was feeling particularly uneasy as we could hear police sirens on a regular basis, subway trains rumbling and shaking the building, a fair amount of traffic and quite a few voices as the city went about its business as day turned into night. Ho hum - early start tomorrow - he can't wait to be outta here!
168 photos today
Links
jiva website
jiva MySpace
We got a good start up the west coast of California passing by such places as Carmel and Monterey. We stopped off in Monterey, and found ourselves at another McDonalds so we fortified ourselves with a burger and milkshake each. We didn't have time to explore Monterey but it seems like a very popular seaside resort with losts of water sports. There were lots of fabulous views (some a little like Scotland) as we drove along the Big Sur - wow! The road was often very winding and perilously close to the cliff edge but fortunately we were on the inside with the sheer drops mostly to our left on the other side of the road.
We made it to Santa Cruz without problem, but spent a frustratingly long time trying to re-connect to the Highway number 1. We went around the city a few times trying different routes pointing to Highway 1 North... but we discovered that in Santa Cruz roadsign arrows pointing left don't necessarily mean turn left... they can also mean go straight on!
Thankful to have successfully managed our way out of Santa Cruz we drove for a while before seeing a few helicopters swarming around - in fact they were scooping up water and dropping it on the forest fires which have been raging through the area. Luckily, the firest hadn't reached far enough west to close Highway 1 although we did see some blackened tree trunks not very far too our right.
We stopped in Half Moon Bay at a most delightful watering hole which was a combination of wine bar, deli and cafe set back from the road in a newly built one street shopping mall modelled on the typical main street in old American western films (it even had an old railway caboose in the yard, but no engineer... and no cowboys).
Then came the hard bit as our destination was a Rodeway Inn in downtown San Francisco. From what had been mostly two way traffic we suddenly found ourselves on a three lane highway which quickly became seven lanes splitting off in all directions. The sat nav coped reasonably well and, with only a couple of missed turns we made it through... phew!
We had booked this particular motel as it seemed reasonably close to the main highways and it has guaranteed parking for guests. It turns out that we've ended up in a pretty undesirable part of the city. Richard was staying with a friend in San Francisco, so we met up for a brief chat and she told us of a few OK places nearby - but she also warned us not to talk to anyone on our way back later, and to keep tight hold of each other... ooh err... it was a no-brainer that we just grab a quick bite to eat and head on back before dark.
Then we worked our way through emails, blogs (including this one!), MySpace, Facebook... all the usual stuff as the high speed wifi internet connection was working well. Jimmy was feeling particularly uneasy as we could hear police sirens on a regular basis, subway trains rumbling and shaking the building, a fair amount of traffic and quite a few voices as the city went about its business as day turned into night. Ho hum - early start tomorrow - he can't wait to be outta here!
168 photos today
Links
jiva website
jiva MySpace
No comments:
Post a Comment