Golden Gate and Pacific Coast Highway

Sunday started very early for us as we were facing a long drive from SF to Santa Barbara with a lots of interesting things to see. The alarm woke us already at 6.20 and after a considerably feeding breakfast we jumped into the car. Although our main direction was about 550km south, we started towards north first. In the first days we didn’t have the chance to really get close to the Golden Gate and we wanted to have a great look at it, so we drove about 30km right next to it. Thanks to the great weather again, we got some really nice pictures.

After the quick stop our next destination was the Pacific Coast Highway, also known as Cabrillo Hwy that runs at some points right at the Pacific coast and it’s very well known as one of the most beautiful roads to drive. There was no doubt about that. There were a lot of people like us stopping several times at various turnouts to take photos.. Despite the amazing landscape and views the ride didn’t go without any problems. Due to a mud and stone slide the road was closed after around 250km. We had seen the signs informing the passengers about that but we kept determined going and believed that there would be a detour possibility. We weren’t the only ones who believed so and among others we had to drive 80km back to reach the nearest way to the freeway heading south. So that was about 2 hours extra driving but thanks to great views it was certainly not pointless :) We also found a great restaurant on the way in which we had lunch on the terrace looking at the Pacific!

After a long day we arrived in Santa Barbara at 7pm. The last hours went pretty smoothly on the freeway and we even happened to drive close to the beach at sundown. On the way we also drove through Solvang, a small Danish village in the middle of California :) The whole architecture was just like in Denmark and most if its inhabitants are originally from Denmark.. We had no clue about our hotel in Santa Barbara, we just reserved some place the day before, but we were very positively surprised by it. It’s by far the best hotel we’ve been staying so far. The Sandman Inn is quite big with two pools and a Jacuzzi. We had reserved a small room with two queen beds but we got really big two-bedroom room. We’ll spend the day here before continuing to LA tomorrow. Hopefully the weather stays as good as today so that we could hang at beach for a while. 

450 miles in the desert and 50 miles in snow

After Las Vegas our next destination was San Francisco. The distance between the two cities is though too big for a one-day drive, so we reserved us a hotel room in Reno. It’s familiarly known as ‘The largest little city in the world’ and as poor man’s Vegas. As we didn’t have breakfast at the hotel in LV we drove a bit outside the city center to a Food4Less supermarket to crab something to eat. We all took a 3 sandwiches bag because those sandwiches were stuffed with meat, cheese and veggies. We were aware of the fact that there are literally no towns between Vegas and Reno so the possibilities to find food on the way were pretty limited. Besides the sandwiches we had some chocolate bars and lots of water. The weather was luckily very good again, the sun was shining and it was quite warm.

Although the drive was long, the fact that we’ve got 4 possible drivers makes it a lot easier. We divided the drive into three sections me being the first driver. I must admit that it’s pretty boring to drive through the desert.. On those 150 miles there were about 7 little curves in total :) so it’s just straightforward the whole time. Although the 3 villages we drove by were very little, there was a McDonald’s in one of them in which we stopped by to have some coffee.. After 8 hours in total we arrived in Reno. The first thing what happened to us there was pretty funny! First we saw some flashing light behind us, so we pulled over and the officer walked to our car.. In our opinions we didn’t do anything illegal so we were pretty amazed. The local sheriff had somehow noticed that we weren’t locals there and wanted to have a chat with us. He asked from where we were coming and where we were going. He also offered his help if we wanted to have driving directions or any other questions about Reno.. The hospitality is awesome here :) After the long drive we were quite tired and didn’t have any energy to walk around the city. We just ate at a Mexican place and went back to the hotel to watch TV and surf in the internet for the first time in 3 days..

The next morning we continued right away towards California and San Francisco. We planned on taking a detour at the Tahoe National Park but due to bad weather we skipped this plan. After the desert the day before, during the National Park leg we confronted almost one-meter high snow banks next to the freeway. The road itself was in good shape and the weather was not below 0° degrees so it wasn’t icy or frosty. The landscape looked pretty much like it is in the Alps during fall. We had to stay over 30 minutes in a queue as a truck had crashed and one lane needed to be closed from traffic. The closer we got to SF, the warmer became the weather and in Frisco it was almost 20° degrees once we got there.. It can be stated that the weather conditions have changed enormously in the past 24 hours. First a hour-long drive in the desert, couple of hours in snow on the mountains and now almost summery conditions at the verdant Pacific coast :)

In SF we had first some difficulties in finding our hotel but once we managed to find it we were pleasantly surprised. We didn’t expect it to be this good! Our room is very big and we thought we wouldn’t get any breakfast but we’ll get a really good one. Actually it’s the best breakfast what we’ve gotten at our hotels so far! After check-in we continued to SF city center to have a look at it and to find a Thai restaurant Matti found on the internet earlier. We found the restaurant easily but finding a parking spot seemed to be harder than anywhere else. We drove at least a half a hour around the blocks before we managed to find a free spot. The restaurant itself was okay, the food was cheap and tasted fine but the dishes weren’t spicy as they should’ve been.. Maybe we looked too foreign for them that they didn’t wanna spice up too much.