Driving to San Francisco

Hey! The last time I left you, Merry and I were driving through the night on our way to California. As the sky was just barely lightening up around 5 am, we had finally made it into Cali and we were both super exhausted. I had been driving the whole night because Merry’s driving scares me, and Merry’s driving in the dark… I can’t even. So anyway, since it was getting light out, we felt safe enough to pull off to a rest area and and take an hour nap in the car with the doors locked and pepper spray at the ready.

After that we felt refreshed and pressed on. Oh, I forgot to mention that at the border going into California, each car was stopped as they checked to make sure you weren’t bringing certain things over the border. Cherries were apparently on the “can’t bring in” list because they confiscated the ones we had brought to snack on!

Of course we stopped at the welcome to Cali sign to snap a couple pictures…

It was shaping up to be an absolutely beautiful July day in California, and Mt. Shasta was a stunning view for a portion of the drive. Since it was light out, we went through some of our quiz magazine- having the passenger quiz the driver, to pass the time. Also, when we got tired of music we listened to some Friends episodes that I had on my iPod. Sometimes you just have to improvise!

815 miles and about 15 hours of driving later, we arrived in San Francisco! We were PUMPED. The weather was a little chillier than we were expecting, but we didn’t mind. We had made it! After getting stuck in some traffic with our gas tank on E, I had a little panic attack thinking we were going to run out of gas, but we didn’t! We pulled off, gassed up, and found our hotel.

We stayed at this Best Western hotel which was by the San Francisco airport, AKA it was super cheap. Being so young and driving, we didn’t mind the location at all. Our room was a decent no-frills room with a king bed on the 8th floor. We had thought ahead in an attempt to save money and brought some microwave meals, but quickly found that our room did not have a microwave. Not a problem though, because on our way up to the room in the elevator, Merry started some harmless flirty chatter with the bell boy. He told her his name and to let him know if we needed anything. Later on, Merry ended up calling from our room asking if we could get a microwave brought up. (I’m not even joking.) And the bell boy TOTALLY BROUGHT ONE UP! Our room was on the smaller end too, so we didn’t even have a place to put it. We had him set it on the floor, and we ate our microwave meals criss-cross applesauce on the carpet. I have no pictures of this classiness, thank goodness:)

So, for our stay in SF we had both purchased a San Francisco Go Card beforehand. The day we bought them, they were having a deal so we got a three day pass for only like, $90 or so. These were awesome, and I’m so glad we bought them! It basically allows you admission to anywhere on the list with the card. Now there are some stipulations and time restraints, but we had no issues anywhere we went. We only went to five attractions on our list, but we did the math and it totally saved us money buying the card rather than paying for admission to each place.

After getting all checked in we hopped back in the car and drove to downtown San Francisco. One thing we didn’t budget was all the parking we would have to pay for. We didn’t break the bank with this trip though, so it all worked out. We walked a little bit downtown and enjoyed the hustle and bustle that only comes from being in a big city. We loved being by the water!

Here’s a shot of Alcatraz from where we were:

We saw a sign for the wax museum at Fisherman’s Wharf, so we headed on in. The wax museum was included with our go card.

We ended up doing a lot of these “fortune teller” things for some reason.

And we saw the Last Supper,

Angelina Jolie,

Nicole Kidman, Halle Berry, and Oprah!

The scariest room was the dungeon downstairs, filled with all the villains we know including Jason, Freddy Krueger, and Beetlejuice.

After we had wandered through the whole museum, taking plenty pictures of the wax lookalikes, we headed back to our car to go back to the hotel. By this time it was dark and we were wiped. What a long day! Back in our room, we admired the nighttime view out our window and then hit the hay. Driving 15 hours really takes it out of ya. It didn’t take long for us to fall asleep thankfully, because we had a big day ahead of us to rest up for.

Be sure to stop back to check out day three of our Cali road trip!

xoxo,
Kayla