San Francisco to Santa Barbara 1
We are now though roughly back into California and we have forgotten how expensive California really is Campsites more than double in fees up to $75 a night with gas / petrol in the upper $3to $4.
San Francisco is the 2nd densely populated large city in the USA. It ranks as a top tourist destination and we found the city friendly open, neat and very easy to drive and pleasant to visit, that is besides the electric trams that did not run on the Saturday when we waited for hours without any notice of the maintenance on the lines. We bought a Hop on Hop off city tour as it is the best way to get an overview of the city quickly. Home gardens is something that only belongs to the stinking rich and that is also a sacristy It lies in the earthquake zone and suffered 2 very serious earthquakes during the last century. As most of the city along the water front is build on reclaimed landfill land it makes it very vulnerable when an earthquake strikes as this landfills reacts almost like quick sand and everything just tumbles in, but the city was quickly rebuilt on a grand scale after each quake. It is world famous for its spectacular Golden Gate Bridge, fog, steep rolling hills, Cable Cars, the former Alcatraz prison on an island in the bay, and it’s Chinatown which is the biggest outside of China. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers and the promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on deserted their vessels and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Even today they uncover some of the boats when they do excavation where the old harbor used to be.
It takes 3 years to paint the Golden Gate Bridge the legendary Orange color and once completed they have to start allover again due to the very harsh sea climate. With its soaring towers, gracefully curved main cables and slim vertical cables it is nicknamed the “steel harp”. At the time it was built some believe it is not possible to build a 1.7 mile suspension bridge. This bridge is an unmanned toll bridge and it takes a photo of your vehicle and you receive an invoice in the mail. It only takes photos going into town as it assumes you do a return trip, so $6 is for the return trip.
A major attraction is the Crookedest Street in the world. We have traveled 13 degree sloped passes but this road has an incline of 26 degrees. Needless to say it is a one way down hill, but it is most beautifully landscaped and everybody has to see or travel this road.
Coit Tower offer one a birds eye 360 degree views.
Pier 39 with its 2 levels of shops and restaurants, with sea lions and Alcatraz.
Fisherman’s wharf with is boats celebrates San Francisco’s rich maritime heritage.
We had to just go uphill with the world famous cable cars. Yes this is a moving Historic Monument. The cables run under the tracks in the ground. An incredible piece of engineering at its time.
Turntable
Bella and Hennie hanging out in San Francisco
Other scenes in San Francisco.
We decided to avoid traveling through San Francisco once again and also to avoid the Toll fees on the Golden Gate Bridge and there was a Passport America campsite which was half price near Rio Vista. We traveled around the bay to and through the California Delta where the Sacramento and the San Juanquim Rivers created an expansive inland river delta and estuary. Little did we know the other bridges like the Antioch Bridge, are also tolled. As we arrived at the manned booth and they demanded cash, No Credit cards and according to California Law I got slammed with a $25 violation on top of the $20 toll fee. This is now starting to get a very expensive detour as the campground also did not grant us the 50% discount on weekends. Not that the place was full just greed in my opinion
The Delta was a large freshwater marsh, consisting of many shallow channels and sloughs surrounding low islands of peat. See my previous posts for how these rivers was dammed to control the water, and the creation of the very fertile farm lands that exist today) It is now called California’s Holland as since the mid-19th century, most of the marches has been gradually reclaimed for agriculture. Much of the Delta’s 57 reclaimed islands sit below sea level, so the extensive set of channels collects the water which is then pumped into the river which is at a higher level. The rivers are lined by 1,100 miles of levees or dikes that border 700 miles of deep ship waterways. A farmer gave us a little background to this area and apparently in the 1960s a Levee broke as a result of an Army Corps of Engineers miscalculation. And the island we were on flooded. I was a very fertile asparagus farming area but since the brackish water flood they farm with cattle.
Our Campsite below the water level and levee on the right. That night we had a howling storm with branches blown off these trees. One such branch fell onto the RV next to ours and left a gasping hole in the roof and side. Poor people got a fright of their life and had to evacuate for the night.
The elevated waterway / river levee and the Island. See how unstable the earth is around here making it one of the worst roads we encountered.
This detour with all its expenses was very interesting and very worth while to see all the facets of California. On the way to Monterey at the coast we had to cross these rolling hills which are in sharp contrast to the area we have just been
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At Monterey we stayed at the Fairgrounds which were the most reasonably priced. This is also close to the world famous Pebble Beach golf course where the fees a $475 a game. There are no less that 20 golf courses in this area. Just south of Monterey is the stretch of scenic cost line, with the road that winds to Big Sur, with one spectacular view after the other. In my opinion this is more spectacular than the Oregon coast. It is almost like a mega Chapman’s Peak with the highway 1 that hugs the ocean against the very high cliffs of the Santa Lucia Mountains passing through farmlands and curving and dipping through California’s most rugged coastline for almost 60 miles. We were lucky to enjoy clear skies as this route tends to be very misty with unpredictable weather.
Some spectacular views from the Big Sur.
Point Piedras Blancas -Elephant Seals almost hunted to extinction, but now a growing colony.
Close to San Simeon the Hearst Castle reigns over the coast. It was donated to the state of California by the Hearst Foundation and one can tour the castle. We found the fees too expensive so we gave the tour a skip. Watching the video and the exhibits at the information center gave us a very good insight to the Hearst family I remember when I was young Patty Hearst was in the news for belonging to some terrorist groups. She and her bodyguards also occupied the beach to the dismay of local taxpayers. Luckily it is now part of the Hearst San Simeon State Park.
This area below the Big Sur is a very dry arid almost desert area with its barren slopes towards the sea. Evident in the landscape is you get the impression that when it does rain floods become a real danger. The early Spanish settler farmed with cattle at Santa Maria. Story goes that one day his cattle grazed the flats and the next day they all washed away. Hence he prayed to Santa Maria. The tourist centers are interesting and you find them in every little town mostly under the banner of the Chamber of Commerce. We have learned that when you ask them what is the “must see attractions” in town, they do not have much to offer from a sightseeing point if they start telling you about the many good restaurants and wineries in the area to explore. These towns do have as much a 500 restaurants and one wonder how on earth they survive. Somehow they do and the people seem to wine and dine in a fashion that is unfamiliar to us and besides it is just way too expensive to for my budget. Santa Maria was such a visitor center but they did tell us about Solvang which we probably would have missed not knowing any better.
Solvang is an earlier Danish settlement with a very strong Danish architecture and culture. The city is home to a number of bakeries, restaurants, and merchants offering a taste Denmark and it draws +- 7 Mil tourists a year. Incredible if you think that around the 1940s a single article in the press shot this town in a major tourist attraction. We thought we will just spend an afternoon in town and move on but we end up spending 3 days in town and its surrounding valley.
Santa Barbara is the area where President Ronald Reagan had his ranch in the mountains. We explored the city on a Hop on Hop Off tour which was not that expensive compared to the big city tours
The historic Sterns wharf which is the oldest working wharf in California dating back to 1872
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