Miles: 740
Route: Salt Lake City, UT - San Francisco, CA
Sarah and I made the long drive from Salt Lake City to San Francisco on Friday. We'd originally planned to meet some of our friends at Lake Tahoe for the weekend, but the King Fire nearby led several meteorologists to forecast smoky conditions outdoors on Saturday - so we all decided it would be better to just meet in San Francisco. Though our drive was extended by an extra four hours on Friday, we both love San Francisco and weren't complaining about having some additional time there.
The 12-hour drive (including gas and lunch breaks) was mostly like driving through Mars (until we got to familiar territory in California): the salt flats in Utah extended for miles and miles, then in Nevada the desert was only interrupted by the occasional mountain. It wasn't as boring a drive as our time in Kansas, but it definitely felt more isolated. One benefit of the isolation, though - no traffic. That is, until we arrived in San Francisco...
The sign should read: "Welcome to California...and Congratulations on Making it Through the Desert!"
An ideal time to be stuck in traffic on the Bay Bridge.
Our first stop in San Francisco was not the apartment of Billy and Tierney, our hosts for the weekend; rather, we decided to head directly to dinner at the Tadich Grill. This is one of our favorite spots in town and also one of the first places Sarah tried cioppino - and she was eager to see if it was as good as she remembered! (It was.)
Even though the shrimp prevented me from trying it, the cioppino certainly looked delicious!
After dinner, we made our way across town to Billy and Tierney's apartment and, after chatting for an hour or so, went to bed early. The full day of driving (and large portions at dinner!) had wiped us out and we needed some rest.
On Saturday, we woke up around 8am and went for a run. I tried to find us a route that was relatively flat, but we still had to navigate up and down a few hills - it's pretty hard to find a flat few miles in San Fran! We ended up at the beautiful Palace of Fine Arts before working our way back (uphill!) to clean up at home.
Perfect way to start the day.
We met some other friends - Blythe and Cody - around noon at the Ferry Building to grab some lunch before taking a ferry to Sausalito. The ferry ride was awesome - a perfect way to enjoy the cloudless weather we had for the day and to meet the rest of the crew Blythe and Cody had assembled for the day's festivities!
Indian Summer in San Francisco.
When we arrived in Sausalito, we walked the short distance to Bar Bocce to enjoy the weather on the beach, have a few drinks and, of course, play some bocce!
After a few hours, we decided to head back to the city and Blythe and Cody were nice enough to host the party at their amazing apartment. Seeing the types of places our friends live in out here is definitely an incentive to settle on the West Coast when we're done with our travels...
A few hours later, we all headed over to the Great American Music Hall for a concert by The New Mastersounds, which was a great way to end the evening - very fun, lively music that everyone seemed to enjoy!
Today we got brunch with Billy and Tierney, ran some errands and watched football for a few hours. We ended the weekend with dinner at Palm House with another friend, Carl. Though we weren't expecting to have the whole weekend here in San Francisco, we had such a great time vising with friends and seeing the city! Tomorrow we'll get up early to drive down the Pacific Coast Highway to Santa Barbara.