Heading North - Friday afternoon...

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These are the photos we took as we left San Jose and headed North. With absolutely no idea of times, distances or hotels, we took pretty much pot luck. Our intention on Friday evening was to get as far North up Route 1 as we could. Having done that we figured that we could finish off California on Saturday and do Oregon and Washington on Sunday...

So Dave convinced the company he was working with that he needed to go by 3:30, and by 4:00pm Ann and Dave were on the road.

Highway 101 is not very pretty, so we didn't take any photos of that. San Francisco we've been to before, and we just sat in traffic. The Golden Gate bridge, however, was fantastic as ever and at the time of writing is still standing.

This is view of the GG bridge as you approach it on the 101 from the San Francisco side:

And this is the bridge as you go across it. Is really very impressive...

Having gone over the Golden Gate bridge you go through this tunnel - love the rainbow! 

Once through their the road goes uphill a bit and curves back slightly so you can look back at an impressive vista of San Francisco. There is a look out point here, which we (a) didn't have time to stop at, and (b) missed as we drove by...

Sadly we haven't got a photo of the Pelican Pub - which was built by a British bloke as an exact replica of his favourite pub in the UK. We didn't get a chance to stop there - but I'm determined to go there soon. Turns out my US cousin (Mark) drinks there regularly and lives about five miles from there.

Once we got over the Golden Gate bridge, you turn left and head along Route 1. This is the coast road - situated halfway up the cliffs. Very spectacular and suitably difficult to drive along. Mind you, years of practice driving round Yorkshire on titchy roads with sheep on them helped out. This is a view out into the (foggy) pacific during a steep descent:

Having driven until it got sort of dark we stopped at Jenner. There was a weird and strange man there whose hotel was full... He suggested that we turn round and go back about ten miles to stay with his friend. We thanked him and declined. He howled at the moon as we left...

As we drove it got properly dark - which was amazing as the sky was completely clear and there was almost no moon. Ann and I stopped, got out of the car and killed the headlights. The sky was unbelievable - full of stars that you can never usually see. The Milky Way was a proper strip of stars that you could see, and it was hard to pick out the usual constellations with all the extra stars. Amazing.

So, we carried on North until we reached Gualala (pronounced Wa-la-la) where there were a few hotels. We looked at a couple, and settled for "Seacliff on the Bluff". This was very pretty - the photos are all here...