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08/03/2010
6 hours of long, boring, straight freeway we arrived on the outskirts of San Francisco and crossed the Bay bridge. The views of the city at night from that bridge made up for the unspectacular journey berforehand. It was amazing and possibly the most impressive city skyline we have seen yet (and we have seen a lot). Excited to see the city we drove to our hotel and got our room sorted. Our hotel was fairly central and the room was clean and spacious. By this time it was about 8:30pm so we went for a short walk in the surrounding area and looked for somewhere to grab something small to eat. In the end we opted for the grocery store across the street for some fruit and a sandwich and went to bed.
The next morning I woke up early for breakfast, which was pretty good - a few cereals to choose from, fruit and toast. Then we got ready and jumped in the car to take on the Golden Gate bridge on our way to the Muir Woods National park. The bridge is spectacular. We drove across it with a view of Alcatraz and stopped on the far side to get some good photos of the San Fran skyline and the bridge at the Vista viewpoint.
Arriving in the Muir Woods National Park we parked up and paid. It was really cool. The trees were so tall, higher than you could see, and me and steph couldnt fit our arms around them. We wandered around the park for a while before heading into the gift shop then making our way back to town. On the way back to San Fran we stopped at the small port town of Sausalito for a look around and maybe a bite to eat. It turned out it was quick an expensive place and the weather was quite cold so we jumped back in the car and headed back to the hotel.
Then next day we were booked on a day trip to Alcatraz. We arrived at Pier 33 and boarded the ferry. It was a surprisingly short trip but had great views of the city and the Golden Gate bridge. Disembarking onto 'The Rock' it had a real eerie feel. We were greeted by the Park Ranger who gave us a short talk on the history of the Island and the prison before being taken into a small theatre to watch a documentary. The dock on the island sits at the foot of a steep hill that leads up to the main Cell house. The weather was really nice though, depsite being a bit chilly the sun was out, so the walk was quite pleasant (despite some Americans asking to be shuttled up there - LAZY) Up at the Cell house we were given a headset and headphones for our audio tour. This lasted around 45minutes and took you to every part of the prison from the main cells, isolation cells, kitchen, recreational areas and even the wardens office. It was so interesting to hear about how life was carried out in the prison as well as some of the hairy stories about attempted break outs. The audio tour was narrated by a group of people, some ex-prisoners and some ex-guards so that was cool. After the tour finished we wandered around some areas of the island not covered on the tour before popping into the gift shop then back to the boat.
Back on dry land, we walked along the docks til we got to Pier 33 and had a look around there. Then we walked to Fishermans Wharf and had a look at all the fresh seafood that had been brought in that morning. On our way back to the hotel we walked up the crooked street which was really cool. Back at the hotel and pretty shattered we chilled out and tried to plan the next stage of our trip. Luckily our friend Dale who we met in Asia was online and he knows the area well so he gave us two good options - one was to drive to Vegas via Yosemite but this may be difficult as many of the roads are shut in the winter months - the second was to drive via Reno and venture up into the mountains. After a bir of research we opted for the route via Reno and booked ourselves two nights in a hotel and a days snowboarding with lessons at Mount Rose.
Excited to get to the mountains we were up early the next day for breakfast before loading the car - now named Arthur, for our trip to Reno. We decided to take a small detour and drive down the crooked street which was fun and then left the city on the bay bridge heading north east to Reno.
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