Day 10 (26 July 2016) Lake Tahoe to San Francisco

I had planned a rather complex journey to San Francisco, the objectives were two fold drive through the Napa and Sonoma Valley regions and also catch the Pacific Costal Highway as high up as I could. The thought of driving up to Seattle had occurred to me but the locations we visited were more important than the amount of tarmac we covered.

Our route is shown below you can see it was going to be a long day. Traffic around the major US cities is a problem so you need to make sure you are following Apple Maps (works in the US) or Google Maps.

The drive out to Napa was for most part monotonous and boring but as you go past Sacramento the farming side of the western region jumps out at you. You see miles of neatly planted trees, bushes and flowers that must produce some of the best fruit in the world.

Napa Valley

We drove through the picturesque Napa Valley and did the Silverado trail through the region. We stopped off at various point for photographs and fruit which were amazing. It formed our lunch for the day.

Typically you would be wine tasting in the region we missed out slot as we arrived in Napa around four just as all these were closing. We would not have been able to drink given the driving duties. But if you are a wine buff then you need to stay in the region. The farms are easily accessible and some of them are simply beautiful.

Calistoga - The Old Faithful Geyser

During my trip research I was enticed by stopping off  a natural geyser and there was one in Calistoga. The car park when we arrived was suspiciously bare and while we still proceeded to the see the geyser it was a non event. The whole episode was quite funny, the park where this is located are trying to make the whole experience multidimensional they have a zoo and gardens and lovely chair arrangements.

The experience of the geyser that goes off every five minutes left us a little unsatisfied especially after hearing of the magnificent geyser in Iceland that one our kids had visited. After this we proceed onto hit the Pacific Coastal Highway.

Pacific Coastal Highway (Bodega Bay)

We drove across from Calistoga to Bodega Bay it felt like it took an age to hit the shore line. We eventually hit the Pacific Coastal Highway (PCH) and started our journey south. Our pictures below of the shoreline are below (again courtesy of Mrs themanishdiary).

The views at each turn were spectacular in the the early evening light. The road follows the coastline down to San Francisco and for the most part the road is pretty close to sea level. As you approach San Francisco the road rises as it join the freeway onto the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge has a toll coming into San Francisco. 

As always the San Francisco fog prevented an decent photographs of the Golden Gate Bridge. The fog never cleared during our stay there. Apparently it does clear during the fall season but the fog plagues the city during the summer kill all hopes of a decent photograph. A copy photo can be obtained from Lisbon which seems to have a copy of the Golden Gate Bridge.