Holiday to the Pacific West Coast in Aug 2006: Day 8 – Garberville to Ukiah and San Francisco

After briefly waking in the middle of the night we were both woken by the alarm at 7am this morning – must be a good sign!

Breakfast won’t be remembered favourably!  Not a very good choice and the coffee was bad.

Got back on the road by 8:30am and rejoined the 101.  In a few miles we had turned off at the start of Highway 1, which is a significant point in our journey.

I think Vick was pleased she wasn’t driving for the first 30 miles or so until we hit the coast again.  The road was unbelievably windy (not as in the wind)!  So progress was restricted to no more than about 30mph.

The weather was overcast again, so the view wasn’t brilliant, but our first sight of the Californian coast was quite stunning.

We stopped off at Mendocino which is a very pretty place.  We also got a coffee (what a surprise!) and I also got a breakfast burrito which was gorgeous! (burrito containing eggs, potato, onion and lots of cheese).

Carried on down the coast until reaching Point Arena Lighthouse (we seem to have a thing about lighthouses as well)!  Took a few snaps, talked about naked ladies with some Americans (the flowers – they look like Asian lilies, very pretty and all along the roadside)

Stopped at Bodega Bay for lunch, by which time Vick was starving.  Claudio’s Trattoria – nice but that’s about all you can say about it.

The next 50 miles or so were back to the really winding single track road and as we got closer to San Franscisco we seemed to pick up the city masses who had been out for the day.

Vehicles were going desperately slowly and even though there were signs indicating they should pull over, they stubbornly stayed put.  This created some frustration for the brits who wanted to get on with it.  Whether you drive at 20mph or 30mph you can still take in all the sights in my view!

Our first view of SF was terrific – seeing the Golden Gate Bridge.  We pulled off for the northern view point so we could take some photos, then we headed into SF and found our hotel, which was very comfortable (Orchard Hotel on Bush St, recommended by TripAdvisor).

In the evening we went out to Fisherman’s Wharf by tram and had dinner at the RainForest Cafe, which is quite funny.  It’s made up into a tropical rain forest including stuffed animated animals which move and make noises every 15 mins. 

It’s ideal for kids but the food was excellent anyway.  By now we’ve sussed out eating in America – just order a main course, you still won’t be able to eat it all.

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