San Francisco - we've arrived - 375 miles

After a lovely breakfast this morning we were off. Decided to give Reno & Lake Tahoe (due to the golf tournament) a miss, & head towards Sacramento / San Francisco. We managed to find our way out OK, then headed towards Weed & Redding. At a wayside petrol station at Macdoel, we refuelled. The little shop was filled with Budweiser prints/mirrors, noting their support of all the forces, of history etc. Have put a couple of the pictures in.

We then continued through the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. At one stage we came round a corner, & both Ken & I thought we were looking at a plaque of a deer standing right on the edge of the road. We beeped, & it bounded away back into the forest. All the way (in fact from yesterday) we could see Mount Shasta in front of us, slowly getting bigger, lots of snow on top.

We had a couple of sightings of a massive rock face, & then saw that we could drive into the Castle Crag State Park & have a look. The road was extremely narrow, at one section you are required to do a loop so you can continue on up the mountain. Goes into a one lane road, very pleased we did not meet anyone trying to come down. We got to the top, the bike was really "puffing", not geared to go so slowly at such slow speeds. Once at Vista Point we went for a walk on a well defined track until we came to the point where we could see the mountain and Castle Crag. Lovely little interlude, quite beautiful. Continuing on we had frequent sightings of the Sacramento river, finally crossing it on a long large bridge.

Again, as yesterday, we travelled thru' miles & miles of crops of tomatoes, corn, sunflowers and masses of stone fruit orchards (peaches, apricots, cherries & olives). The temp was up around 104F plus, quite warm, but quite bearable. Would not have been for the traffic going the other way, there was a big accident (appears a 4 wheel drive had plowered into the back of something, police etc were there) & the traffic was stopped for about 5 miles, & was slowing for a further mile or two. Would not have been pleasant or quick.

At Coning we refuelled, & across the road I saw a diner that had masses of wooden bears around it. So cute. We took the side road to San Francisco, not the freeway to Sacramento. Much nicer to travel on.

Even tho' we were getting close to San Francisco there were large areas of rolling hills & not much else. This ended when we met the main road from Sacramento, the highway then became a 7 lane racetrack!! Oh my goodness, they travel at an average speed of 70-75 miles/hr, change lanes in an instant with NO warning, & almost all are talking on the phone, making calls, writing notes etc. We raced along with them all, nothing else you can do. On one of the sections of road they were good enough to advise there were roadworks in progress, & the road would be rough with bumps! I kid you not - we bounced, bumped, dipped, crunched, crashed and shuddered our way along, it's a wonder the bike is still in one piece. We have never experienced anything like it.
Once thru' all of that, & still with no idea of where we were (other than San Francisco), we crossed another huge bridge, the temp went from 104F to 66F in a matter of minutes due to being right next to the bay. Quite a breeze blowing. It was getting a bit hairy, so when we saw a sign for the Hilton Garden Inn we zapped across, pulled in, & thought - to heck with it, regardless of cost, this is where wer're staying tonight. The staff were wonderful, & we have a king-size bed in a room on the 9th floor, at a not too bad cost. Kristin from reception has also given us a coupon for a fully cooked breakfast in the morning.

Shortly we will check out where we are in relation to the Golden Gate Bridge, & what we have to do to visit Alcatraz tomorrow. Once we have done that we will be heading off down the coast. We've made it to California - our 12th state

Lots of homes have masses of wood stockpiled - expecting a cold winter?

Dozens of mirrors/prints were sponsored by Budweiser

... including all the Services, Marines, Coast Watch

Mount Shasta in the distance

Heading up to Vista Point

From Vista Point - view of Castle Crag

and Mount Shasta

Display /Warning for campers at the Ranger Station (where u pay to enter)

Bridge over the Sacramento river

Bare hills just ourside of San Francisco

Bridge before San Francisco

On the 7 lane racetrack into San Francisco

View from our room at the Hilton Garden Inn, San Francisco