Dietz Summer Road Trip

We woke up at our wonderfully quiet campground at Yosemite Creek. We packed up our tent and braced ourselves for the bumpy ride back to the main road. The drive back into Yosemite Valley to where the showers were was about 1.5 hours away. The showers were $5 a person, but unlimited time. Since the campsite last night was so cheap, and we appreciate hygiene, we promptly paid the fee and enjoyed our warm shower.

Our first stop was to check out the Yosemite Valley Village and Welcome Center. Like a few of the parks, Yosemite also has a free shuttle. We didn’t realize that until after we walked the whole way there. We stopped and got some breakfast and checked out the welcome center. We briefly talked to the park ranger about some good places to walk for some nice fews. Half Dome was on our list to hike to, but it is a 14 mile hike and we wanted to get a jump start on the driving for tomorrow, so we decided to just do some shorter views.

From the Visitor Center it is about 1 mile to Yosemite Falls. You can walk right up to the base of lower Yosemite falls. And then on our way back we got a good view of the entire falls. Its not a lot of water, but boy is it tall!!

   

  
 

We then road the shuttle back to the car to put on our sneakers and get some water. We took the shuttle to the Mirror Lake trailhead. This was about a 1 mile round trip, hike out to Mirror Lake. We took the horse trail out there, sort of by mistake, and bad idea because the horses must of just finished their lunch. But once you get to the lake its pretty cool. There were a bunch of people there in their bathing suits. We didn’t bring ours with us but we took off our shoes and enjoyed the cool water. You get some good sites of the granite cliffs around you before you head back.

   

  
 

After we got back to the car we starting looking at what direction to take. We eventually had to end up in Oregon tomorrow, but in looking at the map we saw that we were not far from San Francisco. Our “friends” that we let stay with us at the Grand Canyon gave us a few things to check out in San Francisco, so we put it in the GPS and took off.

We have been patiently and strategically waiting to try an In-N-Out Burger. They are only in AZ,NV,UT, TX, and CA. We have seen them on the road but have been waiting to stop at one when we were in California. You see, this fast food chain was originally started in California and prides itself on fresh ingredients. They peel and cook french fires as ordered and use fresh lettuce, tomato, onion on their burgers. Also, it is featured in The Big Lebowski (set in California) so we wanted to make sure we went to one in CA. We stopped at one in Merced, CA en route to San Francisco. John ordered the Double Double (meat and cheese only), fries, coke, and Vanilla Shake. Danielle got the Grilled Cheese (basically a few pieces of melted cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles and what I believe is called their Animal Sauce), fries, and a Strawberry Shake. It was amazing. John also bought a t-shirt. We took pictures of our food and then ate every last bit of it. John says it was the best fast food burger he has ever had, beats Whataburger, Five Guys, White Castle, and Krystals. Hopefully we run into another one before we leave California!

  
 

We continued our drive to San Francisco and got there around 6pm. We drove across the Bay Bridge and into Fisherman’s Wharf first. The drive across the bay bridge was $6. We unloaded some of our leftover Sacagewea gold dollars and zoomed across. It was too late for any tours of Alcatraz and a lot of the bay tours were done for the day. So we found some cheap street parking and walked from Pier 27 to Pier 41. Pier 39 was fun, lots of restaurants, shops, and attractions. You can walk out and get a good view of Alcatraz and Angel Island in the Bay.

   
  

  
  

  

 

  
We walked a little further down to Pier 41 and stopped at Boudin’s Sourdough for dinner. It was a long wait for the restaurant upstairs, so we sat downstairs and ordered some sandwiches. They make fresh sourdough bread there, in all sorts of shapes and sizes. It smelled like fresh baked bread everywhere you went.

   

 
The decision was made that since it was getting late we would try to drive over to check our Haight- Ashbury. Naturally we found a micro-brewery there and headed across town to the historical district. We put the 60’s on 6 music ration on the Sirius radio. John though he was Steve McQueen and drove the truck up and down the hills. He also did a fantastic job of parallel parking at night with oncoming traffic. Who says you can’t drive a truck in the city?!

Our first stop was the Magnolia Brewery on Haight. It was a small, but cool brewery/ gastro pub. We got the Kolsch and Tilleys Union Lager. We tried to fit in but we were the only ones in shorts! We didn’t know San Francisco would be so cold!
  

We walked about a block to he intersection of Haight and Ashbury. We took a bunch of pictures but the street lights made it difficult. Here are the best ones. (Dad, here ya go! And thank you for teaching me to appreciate an entire generation of music as I grew up). 

  

  

 

 

We tried to drive by the painted ladies (the full house houses) but it was too dark and we missed the turn. There was so much more we could have done in San Francisco but we absolutely loved what we were able to do. This would be an awesome place to go back to and spend some more time. Would have loved to ride the cable car! But it was getting late and we still needed to figure out where we were staying. We were excited to drive the Golden Gate Bridge but it was dark and really foggy. This might of been cool but it was so foggy we couldn’t even see the top of the bridge. 

   

 
As we crossed the bridge we started looking for some cheap hotels. We settled on a Motel 6 somewhere in Vallejo. It was about as clean as any camp site but it had a shower that we didn’t have to pay extra for. It had a dead bolt and we were first floor near the lobby so we could hear if our car got broken Into.  We love camping and exploring the outdoors but it is good to have Internet and a box spring every now and again. 
The good news is the car was not broken into and we got rested up for the rest of the drive up the west coast!