WOW!! It’s Monday and we are now in our hotel in San Francisco. The last five days have been quite eventful.
We were staying at the Dayton RV Park in Nevada and decided to get groomed before the cruise so we got haircuts and JY got a mani/pedi. This was Friday and we planned to cross the Sierra Nevada’s into California on Sunday. During the haircut the stylist told Peter that we’d never make it over the mountains in our truck, let alone pulling a travel trailer. She indicated that 4-6 inches of snow were forecasted on all the mountain passes. We verified this with the highway patrol and they advised us to leave immediately if possible.
It could start snowing the next day (Saturday) in which case the highway patrol could shut down the passes until they were cleared during the week. We did not want to get stuck on this side of the Sierra Nevada’s, nor did we want to miss the boat. (Literally.)
There were no second thoughts about what we had to do. We packed up, hooked up the trailer to the truck and pulled out of the RV Park by 5:00 pm. We drove over Carson Pass where the snow drifts, in some places, were 10 feet deep along the side of the road due to a snow storm the week before that dumped 11 inches of snow on the pass.
The roads were good for us as we made our way over Carson Pass at 8,990 ft. Not one snowflake fell during the drive although the clouds where dark and you could see precipitation falling off in the distance. We were really lucky!
JY called ahead to the RV Park where we were going to stay Monday night in northern California. Luckily they had a cancelation and we could stay for 3 days which is exactly what we needed. We pulled into our site at 9:30 pm in the dark. Shut the truck off, climbed in the trailer and went right to sleep as we were exhausted from that night time harrowing drive.
Peter had made arrangements with someone who owned a large lot in San Leandro to park the truck and trailer for 21 days while we were on the cruise. It was a fenced lot and he lived on the property. He let other people store vehicles, RV’s, boats, school buses and about everything else you could think off on the property. The property was a junk yard to put it nicely. The guy and his wife lived on the property. Interestingly he had a 500 gallon tank he created on the lot with a couple hundred tilapias in it. This was part of their regular diet. We took a 1.5 hour drive to this huge junk yard in San Leandro Saturday just to make sure we could find the place as we did not want to be searching for it Monday morning pulling a travel trailer. On Monday morning at 6:00 am (today) we left the RV Park and drove to the place and parked the truck and trailer. Actually parking the truck and trailer was quite a feat in this weird and crowded junkyard.
Our cab got us and our luggage into San Francisco to our hotel by 9:30 am. Our hotel is just around the corner from the cruise ship, Pier 27.
We stored our luggage at the hotel and spent the next 4 hour wandering around Pier 39 with a million other tourists. We of course had clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl for lunch. JY says her life is complete in San Francisco as she has eaten this iconic San Francisco treat.
Happy Memorial Day!
North By Northwest 