Day 4 - San Francisco to Yosemite

Time to leave San Fran today.

View from our motel

Travelodge at Fisherman's Wharf

We enjoyed our short stay in San Francisco but we're glad to be leaving the big city behind and heading out to Yosemite which is just over 200 mile/ 4 hour drive.  Although it will take longer as we will be stopping off along the way.

We stopped off at Treasure Island on our way out of San Francisco to find a virtual and do the interesting Earthcache about radiation although the warning signs were a little disconcerting.

Then we continued to Yosemite stopping off for a few virtuals on the way.

We arrived in Yosemite about 5 and before checking into our hotel headed into the park to check out the parking for the trailhead ready for tomorrow's early start.

El Capitan

Then we checked into our hotel and prepared our bags ready for our long hike tomorrow.

This should do it

Day 3 - San Francisco

The highlight of our trip to SF was definitely the cable cars - they were brilliant.  We got up early to get the first tram from Hyde up to Union Square.  We were the first ones on so got the pick of the seats.  We stood on the outside and hung on for the best experience.

We spent the rest of the day exploring.  Originally we'd planned to do the '49 mile drive' but decided against it when we realised we wouldn't have enough time so we just picked out a few things to see instead.

Lombard Street

It was great to finally visit Lombard Street which is famous for being a steep, one-block section with eight hairpin turns.  We had intended to drive here but it turned out that the tram stopped near here so we decided to just walk up and down.

We stopped off at The Painted Ladies at Alamo Square.  The Painted Ladies are a row of Victorian houses you can read more about them here.. A number of films and TV shows have used Alamo Square such as the 1978 Invasion of the body Snatchers film, one of my favourites.  Just down the road from here was the Mrs Doubtfire House, this was the house that was used in the 1993 movie Mrs Doubtfire starring the brilliant Robin Williams. So weird to see it in real life.

Me at the Mrs Doubtfire House

Later on we visited the Piers at Fishermans's Wharf, there was an unusual virtual inside a museum of mechanical arcade machines on Pier 41 and then we made our way to Pier 39 to see the sea lions, spent ages watching the sea lions and their antics.  The Sea Lions started arriving at Pier 39 in 1989 after an earthquake hit San Francisco you can read more about them here if you like.  We also did the webcam here which has to be the clearest webcam photo we've ever taken.

Fisherman's Wharf was very crowded and had a funfair feel to the place particularly on Pier 39, we enjoyed a meal at the Hard Rock Cafe then after decided to have a drive around and find a few caches including an old cache from 2001 called Green Thumb, set in a beautiful little community garden (allotment) and such a peaceful spot.

Tomorrow we're moving on to Yosemite.

Day 1-2 - Heathrow to San Francisco

Friday

We left home for the 215 mile drive to our hotel near Heathrow Airport at 17:10, stopping off at Solihull on our way.  Really strange being back in Solihull, Mark worked there for years and Touchwood was my favourite place to go shopping, it's not often we have a reason to go there now.

Saturday

Up very early, breakfast wasn't served in our hotel until 7 so we opted for Maccys breakfast then off to the airport for our flight at 11:25 but first....

Parked at Terminal 3 long stay parking
then a shuttle bus to Terminal 3
and then lastly the Heathrow express train to Terminal 5

Whose idea was it to bring the bikes?

A real struggle with 2 bike bags, 2 suitcases and our carry on bags.😓

Sounds complicated but we were flying out from Terminal 5 and flying back to Terminal 3 so it was easier to leave the car at the parking for Terminal 3 to speed things up coming back.

10 hour flight in World Traveller Plus - comfy wide seats with lots of leg room.

Lovely meal, wine and a movie

Tried to sleep but had a splitting headache which I was expecting as I did the last time we flew long haul.

Wow!  Greenland.

Amazing!

The views from the plane were simply stunning.

Mount Shasta

San Fran!

Flying over San Francisco we could clearly see Golden Gate Park and the bridge and also Alcatraz! Amazing!

Landed SFO - 14:00 local time - 30 degree heat and glorious sunshine.

Picked up the hire car and headed straight to Vista Point, North of the Golden Gate Bridge as it was such a gloriously sunny day with good views.

Not surprisingly a lot of other people had the same idea and Vista Point was extremely busy.

We soon headed up the Conzelman Road to the other view points which were equally as crowded. Once the sun had set we headed to our motel to check-in.    By this time we were struggling to stay awake as our bodies were still on UK time.

It's been such a long day.

Sunday

Up early ready for our ferry to Alcatraz Island.  Breakfast wasn't served until 7:30 so we waited but very soon realised it wasn't worth waiting for.

So later on we stocked up on porridge and milk to make our own for the next couple of days.

Breakfast??

Arrived at Pier 33 in plenty of time for our ferry crossing which was booked for 9.10am.

While we were queuing a few flies kept landing on us so we just brushed them off and didn't think much of it but when we arrived at Alcatraz Island the Guide explained that it was 'fly season' as a result of the cormorants nesting there... and there were a lot of flies - funny how this wasn't mentioned in their promotional bumf 😉.  Luckily, although annoying, the flies didn't actually bite and they didn't venture into the buildings.

We followed the audio guide while doing the multi-stage virtual cache and it was very interesting and informative - can't believe we were actually on Alcatraz Island, the stuff of legends from our childhood.

After that we headed off for lunch and then visited REI, a really cool outdoor store, a brilliant shop and really well stocked with just about everything you would ever need in the great outdoors - really wish we had one back in the UK.

After finding a webcam and stopping off at Panera Bread (our favourite place to eat in the USA) for tea we headed up to Twin Peaks to see a night time view of the city - amazing views, the photos don't do it justice.

Tomorrow we're exploring San Francisco