31/5 - 4,000 Miles

Thursday, the last day of spring was the day for us to drive into San Francisco - our last destination for the trip - and return the car. We had loved the atmopshere of the Apple Tree Inn in Fish Lake with its 3-unit cabins nestled on the hillside amongst the trees (Zoe even saw a deer walking across another cabin's "lawn" that morning). However the 1-hour drive from there into the heart of Yosemite NP (along with some serious packing that morning so that when we dropped the car off we would only have as many bags as we could carry) precluded another trip in.

Fortunately the edge of the park is much closer, and nestled just inside on the Fish Lake side of the park is the Giant Sequoia grove. This grove is home to some of the largest and oldest living "creatures" on the planet - up to 3,000 years, 100 metres tall, and 10 metres diameter.

So we drove to the grove and walked the first mile or two of the trails there - the Grizled Giant, Bachelor and 3 Maidens, California Tree, and others were all seen and marvelled at. The sheer mass and height of the trees is something that photography cannot capture. There was a lot of good information on plaques along the trails - some data for the kids to think about and put in their journals.

Not too sure of how long the drive into SF Downtown would take, and with the day ticking away we finally said goodbye to the grove (with its horde of trolley-riding French tourists giving a less than rousing cheer for their tour operator) and headed out towards SF.

At Marapossa we stopped at a dinner with real character (old record albums "tiling" the walls and ceiling) and which boasted the largest menu in the sierras. Maria had a baked potato with an almost obscene quantity (and appearance) of toppings. I also recall a customer arriving who's car license plate stated "Once a Marine, Always a Marine", and that there was a hand-written sign on the door asking for new staff, and that the employer would pay for drug-testing of the applicant.

Then the long and chiefly uneventful (at least till we got near SF) drive ensued. At one stage we passed through the largest wind-farm I have ever seen. Hundreds, perhaps bordering on over a thousand windmills scattered across an area of several kilometres. It was well placed too - the winds were very strong.

Somewhere along the way we were able to find a gas station with a car wash as we were concerned that a car spattered with 1-month's worth of spring insects might incur an additional cleaning fee when returned. The gas station was interesting as it doubled as an Indian grocery (and goods) store - something that I don't imagine is that common. Closer in we filled up the tank (a less than wholesome suburb it seemed as the attendant was behind a glass partition...but extremely nice) then finally found the traffic as we edged our way over the Bay Bridge.

Our drop-off of the car in downtown (a "Union Square" location - though the term Union Square seems to be used to describe anything within a 6-block radius of the square itself) had been of some concern as we had a map the showed street names and directions, but not numbers, and the street we were to drop off on (Bush) ran in the opposite direction to that we would be entering the city from. So it was a tense time in downtown as we tried to choose correct lanes in the "peak-hour" (we were arriving in close to 6pm) traffic and when to cross over onto our street. We'd naively thought we'd just "pull-over" to the side of the road if we became lost or disoriented - fortunately that wasn't necessary as there simply was no place anywhere to stop.

Soon - only 2 irate horn tirades from angry drivers (thats one way to measure time) later - we were pulling into the underground car garage and unloading our faithful car (turned out we did over 4,000 miles in the car - starting in California, out east to Arizono, then north through Utah and Idaho, west into Oregon, then south into California ... a very large circle) in cold SF (we all got our jackets on very fast and looked quite the silly tourists in our shorts and t-shirts). Then we walked our bags the 3 blocks to the hotel (memories of the Athens experience when ariving from Santorini the first time came to mind) and before long were up in our room with its hand-painted mural (fish) walls. Then down and just up the street for some excellent (and very cheaply priced) Thai.