Part five...San Francisco!

I did write this a week ago, but my phone decided to delete it for some reason...

We arrived at our hotel mid afternoon and chilled out for a while. Our hotel was in emeryville,  across the river from San Francisco.  We had a quiet night in and got some noodles from a shop called Trader Joes which was so good! 

Our first day in the city we decided to head to the centre. We had to take a shuttle bus to the BART station (bay area rapid transit) which then took us to the centre across the river. We started off at pier 39 which is massively touristy with fun shops like a left hand shop and a sock shop which had wonder woman socks with capes on! We checked out all the shops and then spent ages watching the sea lions that cover one side of the pier. They are so noisy and smelly but very entertaining to watch as they push each other off. We headed to Lombard street which was up a massive hill and full of tourists blocking the road taking group photos. They needed two traffic control men to keep the cross roads going properly. We wandered back to the station and by the time we got dinner and headed back to the hotel for some more noodles and salad for some tv and sleep.

Our second day was going to be golden gate bridge day. We had been told which bus to get so we confidently headed to the city centre. We couldn't find the bus stop for a good hour and when the bus did come they only took exact change. So we headed up the road to a shop to get some change. Thinking there would be lots more bus stops up the road we carried on walking up the hill. An hour or so later we realised this wasn't the case at all and had to find another bus to take us. We finally got there and trekked across. It was so windy and, again, full of tourists taking group photos and just generally being in the way of everyone else. We got a bus back to the centre and did a bit of window shopping before going back to the hotel.

Our last day in san Francisco was going to be Alcatraz which we were excited for.  We got the boat over and did our audio tour of the jailhouse which is very creepy but so interesting.  

We couldn't stay for too long as we were heading down the coast that afternoon :-)

Part Four - Lake Tahoe

After our night stop in Jamestown, which included a milk-less cereal breakfast, we left for our next stop, Lake Tahoe. The drive was again very scenic, and included a lunch stop overlooking a pretty impressive view. Once we got to South Tahoe we followed the road around the lake as we were staying in the northwest. The road was very twisty with some steep hills. There were very good views of the lake though. After arriving at our motel and chilling out for a bit we headed out for dinner at a Thai restaurant and then back to bed. 

The next day was to be spent at the lake. After arriving at the car park, half an hour back towards the south, only to be told it was cash only, we had to drive until we found a nearby ATM. Eventually we arrived back at the car park for Emerald Bay. This was an extremely nice area which we were recommended. It was a bit of a walk down to the water but it was worth it. We sat watching the water and chilling in the sun. Afterwards we went back to the car and headed to a park a bit further around the lake as it was included in our parking price. This spot was arguably nicer. It had a nice beach, was quiet and a good view of the lake. After, we headed back to the car and made our way up the long road which led to the main road. It was here where we came across another car stopped. After initially thinking they had broken down we passed slowly and noticed they were taking photos. It was only Emily's scream which made me stop to see what was going on. By the side of the road, picking at some bark was a brown bear. It was quite small so probably a baby, but we were seeing a bear in the wild which we never thought we would. It was all quite surreal. After taking some photos we then headed back to the motel, before heading out for a Mexican. 

We both enjoyed our stop in Lake Tahoe, it's extremely calm, quiet and picturesque, but it was time to move on to our next destination, San Francisco. 

Part three...yosemite!

We were staying in a town called Bishop hoping to check in early to our motel as it was on the way to Yosemite National Park. We were out of luck and so headed further up the freeway to Mono Lake, just outside of Yosemite. We had our picnic lunch overlooking the lake which was very impressive. After hearing from a ranger the National Park village was another two hour drive we decided to just check out the nearest part of the park (you pay for a 7 day pass). The lakes there were amazingly blue and the mountains looked stunning too. After many photo stops we turned back to drive back to the town. We decided on an easy dinner at Dennys.

We had another night booked at the motel so instead of a three hour drive to the National Park village,  we decided to have lunch at Mammoth Lakes which was closer. Those lakes were just as picturesque.  We had a chilled out day before heading to yosemite the following day.

The drive to Yosemite was lovely with good views and nice scenery. The park has a shuttle bus to drive everyone around as the park is so massive. We started off by wandering to the waterfall. We then headed East to see some more waterfalls and hike a nature trail. We got a little lost and ended up on an island in the middle of the river. The mirror lake was another trail we decided to walk and that was nice too.  To finish off the day,  we watched sunset from a secluded bit of the park. We then headed to our next motel in a town called Jamestown, ready for our next adventure!