Day 187 - Sacramento to San Francisco - 8th February, 2005

Got up and got going as we wanted a quick look around old Sacramento, we had seen a barber shop to get Sammy a hair cut and we needed some groceries.

I dropped Julie and Sammy off at the barbers and headed to the gas station to fill up. In California they don't trust you to fill up without pre-paying so I went into the shop for them to get an impression of my card. The pretty Indian girl in the shop started taking to me with a Leeds accent. We had a good long chat as neither of us had met someone from home for ages. She had moved to Sacramento with her husband 13 years ago (I also met him) because UK was too cold. But she had not lost a bit of her accent and it was so funny to hear her say "lovely" in that Leeds accent here in the middle of Sacramento.

I collected Julie and Sammy from the supermarket. Sammy was in tears because of his hair cut. He has decided that since being in Canada, where many of his classmates had shoulder length hair, he did not want it cut under any circumstances. Since he could no longer see through his fringe we decided that this policy should be overruled. He recovered somewhat but was pretty miserable for the rest of the day. It's like his hair is his and he controls it and he liked the statement that it made especially in contrast to Julian's crew cuts. But that cutting it was about losing control of that one thing he could change about himself. He has also been, since birth (well almost) quite shy about the birthmark on his face and likes his hair to cover it as much as possible.

After doing these chores we went for lunch to the old town of Sacramento. It's where the town was originally settled and still has all the old wild west type of buildings in it. It was very pretty and we went to the most fantastic museum I have been to recently. It was a railway museum and it was excellently done. Absolutely one of the best.

We went for lunch in a Canjun restaurant but the Jumbulya (sp?) that I had, looked and tasted like dish water so that was not much of a success for me although the others enjoyed what they ordered. After lunch we set off in earnest for San Francisco.

We arrived across the Bay Bridge (the really long one divided into 2 parts by a small island, not the Golden Gate) and went downtown and out up Highway 101 over the Golden Gate and took our photos from the headlands on the North side of the bridge. There was a film crew up there with a reporter from Channel 5 Eyewitness news doing a story about them City putting up the price of the toll on the Golden Gate bridge. We had a great talk to the reporter about our trip and his family. Marvelous.

We then headed to the south side of the Golden Gate bridge, unhitched the bikes in the Presidio and cycled across the bridge in both directions. The sun was going down and it was a perfect ride.

That night we stayed in an RV park about 15 miles north on the bidge on 101. We were lucky, they only had one site left when we go there. All full timers again.