R-V There Yet?

We did not want to drive our dually truck in San Francisco, not to mention, try to find a parking place.  Not a good idea to take the truck into the city!!!!!  So we searched the different ways to get to San Francisco.  One, we could take the Amtrak from Sacramento and transfer to a bus along the way and the bus would drop us right downtown. The tickets cost about $40 a piece.  Two, we could drive about 70 miles and catch the BART station at the last city on the line.  From there, it would be about an hour’s drive on the train and it too would drop us off right downtown.  The cost of that would be $10 a piece not counting the diesel for the 70 miles.  We decided to drive the truck and ride the train.  We have ridden the train from Fort Worth to Dallas and back so getting on and off should be no problem.  Well, yes, there is a problem.  We are familiar with every stop along the way to Dallas and Ft. Worth but not with the names along the route into SF.  So we had to really pay attention and hoped we got off the right exit from the train.  We had no problem after all.

We had signed up for a 5 hour bus/ferry tour.  First place we went was on the ferry to Sausalito which gives you a great view of San Francisco, the bay, Alcatraz, and the bridges, but it was hazy and grey looking. 

In Saucalito, these stairs take you from one street up to the next street so the locals can walk around town and not get into the congested traffic from visitors.

Rick and Tinka in Sausalito 

Then back to SF across the Golden Gate Bridge.

 Tinka’s arms are wrapped around the size cable that holds up the bridge.

SF is famous for old Victorian houses. The dark green one came up for sale about 2 years ago for $7 million.  You have seen the inside of this house if you saw Mrs. Doubtfire with Sally Fields and Robin Williams. 

Then on to my favorite street in SF which is Lombard Street.  This is known as the  crookedest street in SF.  The reason for all the hairpin turns are so people can make it down the hill without killing themselves.

Rick actually walked down some of the steep streets!!!!! (Note the foot hold treads on the sidewalk.)

http://www.sftravel.com/lomabardcrookedstreet.html

More to follow tomorrow.   

Tomorrow we are taking the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) into San Francisco to see the sites.  So we were on the internet most of the day planning on what we were going to do in SF and how we were going to get there.  We are going on a 5 hour city tour.  Then later we can go back another day to do and see certain things that really interested us.

It was rainy and chilly most of the day.

We are sorry we haven’t posted anything in a few days.  When we left the Escapees Rally we were exhausted.  Our brains had to absorb so much new information!!!!  We headed back up near Sacramento and guess what?  Spring finally arrived in CA.  It was a weekend with 90 degrees, no wind, no sand, no nothing, except beautiful weather!!  So we relaxed by the pool all weekend.  It was crowded at the RV Park.  All of CA decided spring had arrived also and joined us.

We are heading into Sacramento this morning and when we return we will post some pictures. 

Yesterday we made it up to the Sacramento area.

We will be attending an Escapees Rally next week.  This is a group that works with full-time RVers and the organization that we use for our permanent Livingston, TX address and mail forwarding.  They will be having several seminars on critical functions about which all RVers should be knowledgable.

Well, the truck should be in pretty good shape now.  First, we ended March with replacing the thermostat, flushing the cleaning system and cleaning the air filter, about $150.00.  Next came two new front brake rotors and new front brakes, $350.00.  Then it was time for a couple of new tires for the truck, $455.00. We finished up the month with a change of synthetic motor oil, $120.00.

That’s $1,075.00 for the month, not including a few hundred dollars of fuel.  We’ll keep our fingers crossed that we’re in good shape for several months.