Thursday: Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco Treat. :d

7:30 wake up call. That was hard. After a decent night's sleep, we folded up the blankets and sheets, and had a decent breakfast of cereal. Saying goodbye to our wonderful host family, we set off. : Lake Tahoe via San Francisco via California Route 1. Route 1 is the drive along the coast. It is beautiful. Heading out from Nick's, we got back on the 118 and took that to the 101, driving through all the main cities up that (i.e. Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, etc.). Matt was driving. I was attempting to take pictures....but I"m not a big picture taker. I did take some though however idk how good they are. Once we reached San Luis Obespo, we had a choice. on a little more than a quarter tank, could we make the 100 mile trek to Montery or get gas at our current location. We decided to go for it. The drive was spectacular. The hills and heights gave great views of the ocean. The smell of the air was amazing. It was winding around a lot and there were plenty of construction sites (in which matt had a good time practicing his stops and goes on an uphill with a car behind him.) eventually, we got to a point where we needed some gas. So we stopped at this little place, gas was FOUR EIGHTY a gallon. So ridiculous. So 10 bucks, 2 gallons later, three dollars worth of postcards, we got back on into Montery. By that time, I had a headache (i think from lack of lunch) and the headache made me feel a bit nauseous. So once we reached Montery, we got a full tank of gas and stopped quickly at McDonalds. I felt much better after some food and caffeine, and then i picked up the drive on the way to San Francisco.

That drive was a bit hectic, as it was rush hour. There were some standstills in traffic, but eventually, we made it into the city. Once we got in, the traffic got worse. So i took a random detour off and found a McDonalds to go the bathroom, and once back in, I decided to take a side road up. Bernard (the GPS) wasn't being very helpful and wanted us to return to standstill traffic. But i found what i thought looked like a good street to turn down. Ended up being third street which took us right past the Giant's stadium and into the heart of downtown. Downtown San Fran is Frantastic. Electric buses, old fashioned trollies, shiny mid to semi-high buildings, and streets named in honor of famous athletes are just a few details to summarize the sites of the city. I liked the style of architecture and the feel of the cultural setting. What a lovely city indeed. Eventually, Bernard caught up with us and led us on our way to the Golden Gate Bridge. This took us through the famous hills, in which i took my stick shift car up and over. The stops on the uphills were RIDICULOUS, but I conquered them all the same with no problems. It was quite the incredible adventure. From there, we got on the highway and prepared to cross the bridge. Matt took a good video all the way across which I'm going to upload. It was the sweetest thing ever. There was another bridge afterwards that was longer: Richmond Bridge. That bridge was pretty spectacular as well.

Cutting down the highway to Sacramento, we eventually made it and stopped for some good Taco Bell (we are so healthy for this trip). By this time it was dark and we needed to make our way for another few hours to this camp site we had found online. Taking us through dark forests where we couldn't see a thing, we found out the road we needed to go down was closed. Camp site fail. There were a few others we could have turned into that were paid...but having looked them up, they seemed a bit expensive for camping. 40 bucks? really? Other sites didn't feel right, nor safe. So we passed over those and just decided to keep driving to Carson City. By this time it was past midnight.

By stopping briefly at a stop sign, I let Matt take the wheel as my eyes were tired from my contacts. We continued across the Nevada border and through to Carson City. I drifted off a bit as we approached the city, but was awakened as Matt was turning around to rest for a little while in a parking lot...a hospital parking lot. "(0 v 0)" After stopping and sitting and talking there for a little bit, Matt's paranoia was taking over, so we decided to continue further. We found a Motel, but after ringing the night bell, decided to try elsewhere. A little further, there was a Motel six advertising a room for 30 bucks. (cheaper than the campsites...way to be). but by this time, Matt wasn't tired and was up for the hour more drive to Reno. However, just around the small town we stopped in, a cop didn't like that we were out late apparently, and thought it was odd that we pulled out of our parking spot and to the stop sign without our lights on (all of fifteen feet). After a ten seconds of panic, the cops began to toss around a story of why they pulled us over (confirming that we hadn't done anything wrong). After sitting in the car and waiting for a few minutes, the cops (as there were two of them) returned. Since our records were fine and we clearly consumed alcohol nor obtained rocket-launchers or any non-child friendly substance or object, everything checked out. They did say, however,that since my insurance was out of date, he could have given us a hefty $800 fine and towed the car (yes, for real), but since we were on a road trip and a long way from home, they kindly suggested that we not encounter another cop until we had an updated copy of the insurance policy. We thanked him for letting us off (though we didn't do anything to begin with) and started the rest of the way to Reno. Eventually, we got to a motel, 3 in the morning-ish. and crashed. What a day, both highs and lows. Tomorrow would end up being a quest on which to acquire a new insurance card.