I thought for sure this lady was going to fall off the cliff... I was almost too scared to keep watching her.
After lunch, we started the drive toward San Jose. We went along the coast near Santa Cruz - got stuck in traffic in Santa Cruz. I wish we had some more time to explore there, it looked like a cute little town, but we just basically drove through it. Then there was a fun freeway between there and San Jose that drove through some forest on a windy road. And of course, you have to drive fast in California. So it felt like that Cruisin USA arcade game, zipping around all the twists and turns with trees everywhere and cars everywhere. Yeah, it was fun until I needed to pull over for a bathroom break - kind of tricky!
We stayed at a nice Marriott (thanks to my brother in law for the discount?) for the night with a pool so the kids were happy to swim all night until bedtime. And I was happy that there was a kitchen to get caught up on some meals for the next few days. We explored San Jose, San Mateo and Palo Alto the next day, going over the San Mateo toll-bridge. We probably would have continued and just gone to San Fran that day, but I already had hotels booked in certain places and we couldn't cancel them in time. Lesson learned - don't pre-book. Although, I ran the risk of there not being any hotels available because it is summer in California. Most of our hotels on the trip were completely booked on the nights we were there...
You can just barely seen San Fran in the background in the middle. This is at the San Mateo bridge.
It was pretty nice weather in San Francisco - a little foggy but not too bad in the main city. The closer we got to the Golden Gate bridge, the colder and windier it got. China Town was fun, especially for the kids. They had fun going in every souvenir shop we passed. And thanks to a tip, we found the hidden alley where the fortune cookie shop. Again, it would be fun to have a week to explore here... too many things to see in a short time. Missed out on so much .... the Bay bridge, the wharf, the secret slides.... next time I guess.
The start of the double decker Bay Bridge
I was the one driving in town and I hated all the hills because I was always afraid of having to stop right at the top of them, which I did almost every street we went on. I would turn to get off a street with a hill only to turn onto a street with another hill. It was freaky!
Leaving SF...
