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San Francisco (Highway 101)
San Francisco
San Francisco (Golden Gate Bridge)
San Francisco (Golden Gate Bridge)
San Francisco (Marin Headlands)
San Francisco (Marin Headlands)
San Francisco (Marin Headlands)
After a mostly eventless flight to San Francisco via Amsterdam, I entered American soil in the early afternoon. Immigration wasn't a major problem, as usual (even though I had to show my return ticket this time, a first); and pretty soon I was able to claim my luggage and take the sky train to the rental car counters.
I had reserved a 4x4 SUV, and said "no, thanks" to an upgrade offer to a "Jeep Laredo" that I was offered. When I walked to the car garage, it turned out that Alamo has a Choiceline in San Francisco and you can pick your own car out of those they happen to have available within your category. One of the cars available was... a Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo - so I guess the one they wanted me to upgrade to was the one that I ended up anyway... with without upgrading.
My other choices would have been a Trailblazer, or a number of "lesser" SUVs, like a Saturn Vue. I didn't have to think too hard to choose the Jeep as being the biggest and most suitable car for my needs. However, as I would discover a few days later, it had a flaw that would end up costing me one day of my trip.
Pretty soon, I was on 101 North, and then making an involuntary detour through San Francisco's financial center since I had missed the exit to Lombard Street. This wasn't too bad, I just headed towards the Embarcadero, which I then followed West until I rejoined Lombard Street, which became 101 once more and got me over the Golden Gate Bridge.
Golden Gate Bridge was spectacular, once more, since the sky was a perfect blue. I stopped for a few short minutes on the viewpoint just behind the bridge, and then headed up to the Marin Headlands for a few more quick snaps of the bridge - this time of the day, the sun is behind you when you look towards the bridge and the city; and as such it's better than morning or earlier in the day.
The day wasn't over, though - I needed to get food and drinks for most of the week ahead, and I had been planning to meet up with a friend in Napa before heading to my hotel in Rancho Cordova. I stopped at the first shopping mall and stocked up on groceries, and then tried to call my friend on a public pay phone. The first two times she picked up, but couldn't hear me. Thinking that the pay phone was broken, I walked over to another one at the other end of the mall and this time the phone call would work. We arranged to meet at the Starbucks in Napa.
I arrived somewhat close to the arranged time, and we had a coffee before heading off to grab dinner at a restaurant. I then drove her back to Starbucks, where she had left her car, we said goodbye and I was off for more driving, to get me to my hotel in Rancho Cordova; which would put me in close proximity to the Sierra Nevada, my destination for the next day.
I still wasn't that tired though, even though I'd been up for over 24 hours by now, and so when I checked in at the Fairfield Inn I still tried to use the hotel's LAN to connect to the internet. This wasn't met with much success, initially; and I ended up on the phone with a support person who then had to be convinced that yes, the problem wasn't on my end. After he went off to "reboot the servers" the internet access miraculously returned, and I was able to check the weather and road conditions for the next day.
Miles driven: 143mi (230km)
Accommodation: Fairfield Inn / Marriott (Rancho Cordova, CA): $50.15
Written June 10th 2006 in Luxembourg