July 15, 2009. Reno, NV to San Francisco

We shoved off from Bill and Lynn's about 8:15. I had gotten up about 6AM intending to sleep in to 7 or so and just kept moving. Got Mark up too, although he had hoped to grab a few more ZZZZs. I think he, too was eager to get to San Francisco and see Marthha.

Our first destination was about 60 miles down the road to South Lake Tahoe, NV taking Route 395 south to Carson City which ends at Route 50 which we continued on West. Carson City is a college town and capital of Nevada. Kind of remote for the capital in my mind, but so's everything in Nevada.

The road from Carson City to South Lake Tahoe is full of twisties, turns, sweepers, and big elevation changes. You rise from the desert floor in Carson City into beautiful, tree-lined and rocky mountains. Hard to describe, but very pretty.

Coming in to South LAKE Tahoe, Mark's first comment on seeing the Lake was "Holy shit!" The weather was perfect and the lake was spectacular.

I had been through South Lake Tahoe some 28 years earlier with pal Kurt Eve when he came out to visit from Boston prior to moving to SoCal permanently. We did a several-day roadtrip from Seal Beach, CA up route 1 to San Francisco, Napa, So.Lake Tahoe, and Yosemite in my Fiat Spider Convertible.

We had breakfast at the Zephyr Cove Restaurant and headed out. There was a lot of traffic through South Lake Tahoe, made even worse by more road construction. Once out of South Lake Tahoe, it was back to a great ride up and down, left and right, very high paced. We came out of the cooler mountains into 95-degree Placerville. Route 50 from Placerville to Sacramento and Route 80 from Sacramento to San Francisco is a piece of crap. No kidding. Pot-holed, grooved, loaded with semis. Not any fun getting to San Francisco. That being said, we went from the frying pan in to the refrigerator with temps over 100 degrees in Sacramento, and 64 degrees as we approached San Francisco.

We took the Bay Bridge in to San Francisco (EZPass didn't work), came cross-town and readily fouund the Courtyard on Beach Street. Martha was out and about in the Fisherman's Wharf area and was soon to greet her husband and son. Great!

Nephew Hayden brought over the Honda Shadow which we got parked in the adjacent garage; Hayden and his girlfriend took Mark GoKart racing while Martha and I had a wonderful supper at the Rose Pistola in North Beach.

Nothing else to report on this family-friendly blog.

Lots of love

Ozzie, Harriet and Ricky