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Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Westcoast Road Trip Day 4: Entered California - Arrived in San Fran

This was the day we head into California State. We left our hotel at 7:20am, went over to Safeway to return empty water bottles. What's interesting is the recycling machine that automatically calculates accepted or rejected bottles. When you're done, you press the button to get your receipt for the deposit payment. I could hear the machine grind up the platic water bottles. We don't have this in Canada.

By 7:45am, we were on the road o. I-5 South to California.  It was a nice sunny weather and we got to see a lot of mountains all around. We past by Mt. Ashland and saw a bit of snow at the top. There were a few mountains we saw. We passed by another mountain and I believe it's Mt Shasta (EL 14,162 FT). That one was a massive one. The scenic area is very beautiful. We only stopped for a short bit at the rest area.







Eddy Mtn (EL 9025 FT) and Scott Mtn Summit (EL 5401 FT):


At 10:05am, we crossed over the bridge at Shasta Lake. The water was very bluish-green -- a very nice scenary. We stopped in the city there (that's just before Redding, CA) and had breakfast at McDonald's.  After a short break, we continued on our journey.





It was a smooth and straight route and we drove for a very long time. The freeway was a stright-away. At this point, it was a boring drive because there were nothing much to see, except trees and farms.  The weather was getting warmer as we headed further south and the sunshine was beating down on on us in our car. We have A/C so that mad us felt a bit more comfortable.







Rest area in Vallejo, CA


And by 3:05pm, we've entered San Francisco.  Before entering the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, we stopped at the toll and paid $6 to cross. Soon we arrived at our destination at La Quinta Inn & Suites in Southern San Francisco and only took us 20 minutes on Hwy 101 from downtown.







There are lots to see in San Fran, but we only have 1.5 days to explore. After a little bit of rest at the hotel, we went for dinner at a Japanese restaurant just downstairs. Shopping and dining out were very convenient. After dinner, we decided to check out the Golden Gate Bridge during the evening. On our way, we saw Victorian style houses. It's very different and interesting. We head up north and got there around 7:30pm, but it wasn't dark enough yet to get a nice night shot. It was a little chilly, so we didn't stay too long.





Later, we went to the Fisherman's Wharf. We saw some tourists and people walking around. Some of the shops were already closed. We went back the next day to check it out. It was getting late, so we drove on the freeway back to our hotel.

Really nice nighy time view on our way back to the hotel. Too bad we won't be able to see all of it at night. The thing that bugged me the most were the uneven roads in downtown. There were cracks and bumps on the pavement. Horrible! It really hurts the car's suspension.

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