San Francisco Here We Come

Somehow, in moving rooms at the Courtyard Marriott Medford, our itinerary binder got lost. One would expect to loose somethings on a trip like this, but would hope it is not what is yet to be done! Fortunately, because of electronica, it could be figured out again.

We entered into CA somewhere around mile marker 796. It was intimidating to think of how many more miles there were to go. Our trip ends in San Diego, just a few miles away from the Mexico border.  These are the highest road markers either of us has ever seen. Wonder if they are the highest anywhere???

We saw our first highway patrol trawling for speeders in CA, and it was the only  one of the trip. Obviously, Ohio is far more invested in catching speeders than the 13 other states we drove through. I know I have supported that fundraiser on numerous occasions.

Signs that said: All vehicles be prepared to stop ahead" were unexpected. At first (not in a panic!) we wondered if this was a drug check,  but wrong side of the border, for sure. It turned out be be a check point for fruits and plants. After driving through South Dakota and seeing their pine trees devastated by a beetle infestation partial to that kind of tree, we totally understood the reason for the checkpoint.

California is a land of many…. many kinds of crops, many different types of terrain, many interesting things to see, many people and cars, many miles from one end to the other. We passed by a snow covered mountain top,  Mt. Shasta, according to the map. Saw a llama/alpaca farm near Yreka with a small herd of youngsters playing. And believe it or not, there really is an Easy St. It's located in Yreka, CA. A fire near Redding, looked like a building and surrounding trees were getting scorched or worse. Our entire trip has been marked with fire warnings, ranging from high to extremely high levels.

The landscape really flattened out around Redding and orchards started lining the road on both sides. Soon after that, it fall off again to prairie like grasslands Love the 70 mph speed limits! More orchards near Artois. Is a berry bush gathering called an orchard?

Even the grain elevators have some styling to them in CA. The terrain changes so dramatically along I 5 in northern California. At one point, the rolling mounds of golden grasslands looked like Montana, only to have an orderly planted field of trees in the valley between two. Not sure what kind of fruit was being grown, but the thought that the trees could be some kind of nut seemed logical. Is it a nut farm or a nut orchard?

We arrived in San Francisco, but not accommodating the traffic and my current condition, were 5 minutes late to catch the ferry for a night time tour of Alcatraz. Camille ran up, while I hobbled behind, in time to see it pull away. Well, what can be done at this point other than look for other things to do? There are views of Alcatraz from  just about any place on the piers as well as Ghiradelli sign above Ghirardelli Square. We checked into the hostel took our sketchbooks and headed for the pier.

We ended up stopping at the Buena Vista for a light dinner then stopping at the Blue Mermaid for a nightcap. The bartender, Josh, made us fresh margaritas from scratch and they were some of the best I have ever had. He started by taking half a lime for each rita, placing it in a heavy duty, hand squeezey gizmo and squeezing the fresh juice into the shaker. I had not ever seen that done. Other liquideous ingredients were added too, of course. Next purchase, a hand squeezy gizmo! Tip: Cointreau is used to retain the limey flavor of a margarita.

It's interesting hearing about San Francisco from someone who actually grew up and lives there. We took some of his suggestions into consideration while we planned the rest of our stay. No, he is not dressed as an escapee from Alcatraz. The theme of the bar is sea faring.