Love, exciting and new, come aboard, we’re expecting you

Good morning San Francisco.

Another glorious day here on the west coast. Forecast is for a top of 19 degrees and sunny, so that means that anything could happen. It’s the weather bureau’s last chance to make me wear the wrong clothes for the weather.

We packed up all of our stuff this morning, and ate all of our remaining food at our AirBNB.

We did one last load of washing and loaded up the car.

Programmed up Gina to take us to the cruise terminal for a short 11 mile drive … that took us about an hour to complete.

Yesterday, I was pondering whether the population of San Francisco was 870,000 or 7 million.

I’m now convinced. It’s 7 million and every single one of them was out in their car, in the city, doing their best to frustrate my attempts to get to the terminal.

On the way, we drove up (and down, and up ..) and down one of those classic SF streets that is steep, then flattens out for the cross road, then is steep … and so on.

The ones you see in the movies where the car comes tearing down the road, gets airborne and lands in a shower of sparks.

I wanted to give it a go, but there were 2 problems: TOTIL wouldn’t let me, and you can’t get airborne doing 5 mph.

We finally got to Pier 27 where the ship departs, and I dropped TOTIL off with the luggage while I went back into the traffic to fuel up Eric and drop him back to Alamo.

I asked Gina for directions to the nearest gas station and headed off.

Don’t you love those words “you have arrived at your destination which is on the right hand side” … and I sat there puzzled, looking at a construction crew jack-hammering up the concrete where the gas station used to be.

Sigh 🙁

Asked Gina for her next choice of gas station and set off again.

Finally found one, gassed up Eric, and set off for Alamo .. driving somewhere between a San Fran taxi driver and someone who is possessed. Maybe they are the same thing?

TOTIL wasn’t with me so the normal rules of engagement with other road users were no longer valid.

That little journey was all of about 5 miles – and took almost 2 hours 🙁

Traffic is horrendous.

Anyhow, I dropped off the car, hoofed it back to the terminal … and here we are – setting off to Alaska.