California (again) day 14

August 26

After all the time we'd spent in Hayward, it was time to venture onward to see San Francisco and then finally begin our trek northward. The day began with cooler temperatures than we'd had here before. I made several trips to the van with all the baggage we'd kept in our room while the van was being serviced. I wanted to avoid paying any tolls getting into or out of San Francisco so we drove southward on I-880 in order to accomplish this; then we took US 101 north through the communities of the peninsula that comprise "Silicone Valley." Traffic was heavy, but it flowed. The steering and the air-conditioning were still issues, but at least I knew they were going to always be issues, so I tried not to dwell on them as I drove. We got closer to San Francisco with each passing suburb and by the time we reached South San Francisco I got off the freeway and onto city arteries. I tapped all kinds of destinations into the GPS and we wended our way from one to the next in San Francisco traffic. We found some amazingly spacious and affluent neighborhoods in the southern parts of the city, followed by ethnically more diverse and less affluent streets with many small businesses north of that. Soon we found ourselves following and stuck behind a street car attached to overhead cables and running on rails in the street. This led us into the business district of San Francisco with its somber and serious looking edifices of commerce and government. I had the GPS guide us to a street that took us very steeply up a hill lined with homes on either side with profiles that stair-stepped their way up the hill. Twice I crossed cross-streets that required me to stop pointing my van at the sky for their steepness. I was so grateful that this van had an automatic transmission. I could never have managed starting forward from a full stop with a manual transmission on these hills in this part of town. When I crested the last cross-street I found myself pointing downhill as steeply, but with a difference. This was Lombard Street. It slithered back down the hill past beds of flowers and camera-pointing tourists. I was pleased to be able to share this destination with Razelle; however, she didn't care for the back-and-forth motion of the scenery around her during our controlled descent.

We then headed for Golden Gate Park. We saw lots of greenery and lots of people enjoying it. The fog was evident here but not ground hugging. After we'd seen enough of this green gem of San Francisco we turned toward the Golden Gate Bridge. All in all, we had seen everything San Francisco had to offer without leaving the van. There is more variety to be found here than I remember from previous visits. I'm sure that tarrying longer would have revealed even more, but neither Razelle nor I were drawn to this city by the bay enough to explore any further. We drove onto the Golden Gate Bridge, hoping to appreciate this monument to engineering it is purported to be ... and saw only fog. The roadbed vanished into the cloud before us, and we chased after it without being able to see more than a few car-lengths ahead.

We reached the opposite side of the bridge with the thought that, by passing through this cloud we had entered a different realm – Northern California, Marin County – and cooler weather, finally. I had researched motels and RV parks earlier, but none seemed close to our final destination for this day in Kentfield. Before we turned our endeavors to searching for lodging, we drove down to the coastline toward Muir Beach on Highway 1. The road was tortuous but the views were spectacular. At Muir Woods Road we started back up the mountain. This road was soon lined with parked cars and people heading from them on foot toward the entrance to Muir Woods National Monument. There were no parking spaces within, and the trails were not for Razelle, so we continued up and out of this area. We took the Redwood Highway a short way and I saw the name of one of the motels I'd seen advertized in the literature as being low-priced. We maneuvered toward it and found the price to our liking. The problem of lodging was solved. We got settled and at the appropriate time drove to Kentfield to meet my cousins.

Joy and Jason were our inspiration. We had met them in Beer Sheva in 2007 during their round-the-world trip. Joy is more closely related to friends of ours in Beer Sheva than she is to me, but she is nonetheless my cousin. Their trip blog is on the Internet and they inspired me to keep a blog by their example (see: http://wanderingwalkers.com/). We couldn't pass through this area and NOT stop for a reciprocal visit with them. Joy's parents and Jason's parents were there at the dinner table, as well. We were able to light Shabbat candles here because it is a private home. We had a wonderful evening, recounting similar experiences and eating good food cooked in the back yard: salmon grilled over an open flame that Razelle raved over. They also served a delicious dry red wine. It was a pinot noir, which is a grape I've not had the pleasure of tasting in Israel. I have avoided alcohol during this segment of the trip because I'm doing so much driving. The pleasure of tasting this wine led to my gesturing clumsily and knocking over my goblet. It shattered into many pieces and I was mortified. I conscientiously waited a long while after this happened before I dared drive away from their house in the van later in the evening. We were glad we had taken time to enjoy ourselves with such nice company. We returned to our room in a happy state of mind.

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RAZELLE'S PHOTO OF THE DAY

Writer at work, keeping up with the blog