We took our time getting up this morning, checked out and had breakfast at the cafe next door which we thoroughly recommend. Not flash but good food and reasonably priced.

We checked out the Plaza area, the historic centre of Sanoma. The old barracks had some memorabilia and info on the bear flag rebellion which was all very interesting. Until yesterday we'd not heard any of this so all new to us. In the centre is a lovely park space complete with a duck pond with all sorts of ducks including some sporting fluffy hair dos. There were lots of very pleasant areas to either sit and enjoy the sunshine or be in the shade.

Deciding we better get a move on we set off for San FrancIsco. The toll bridges are electronic only and the rental co tops up the toll with a $15 "admin fee" (read rip off the tourist!) so we opted for the long way round which was not even an hour more. The outskirts of Sanoma were mostly vineyards offering wine tastings, cafes etc. we also passed a farm with signs offering lamb for sale, at last! Given we have no way of cooking them for the next few nights we decided we could live lamb free another couple of weeks til we get home. Just out of Sanoma we crossed an extensive wetland area with heron and other birds out fishing. After skirting Vallejo we crossed a long bridge towards a massive industrial area, not the prettiest of sights :-(

From there it was a lot of freeway mostly 3 lanes each way but often 5 or 6 lanes that were moving well.

By 1.30pm we'd passed the 30 mark. It's warmer here this year in autumn that it was last year in summer, go figure. The long running drought is really obvious here, there's little sign of green grass, the paddocks we pass are a uniform brown. Some sections of the road were lined with gum trees, it smelt like home lol

We passed a big facility which looked interesting, it turned out to be a research station for NASA.

Approaching SF there was a thick fog visible in the distance, suspect if we'd taken the coast road the view would've been limited. From SF Sth onwards there were houses stacked up, looking like little boxes one on top of the other, not our idea of how to live but I guess you get that in a big city like this.

The temp gradually got lower as we approached the coast, getting down to around 20C

We checked in, parked the car up and went walking. Three and a half hours later we'd been up hills and down steep steep streets. We saw a little of the Golden Gate but for the most part it was swathed in heavy fog. One of the streets we walked was crawling with cops, secret service personnel, dog squads and even a bomb squad. All we got from one of the cops we talked to was they were expecting some dignitary.

Knackered we got back to our hotel and pretty much crashed for the night.