Thursday 27 October: Yosemite to San Francisco

The clouds which had darkened last night's sunset spread across the sky and dumped rain on Yosemite Valley all night long. It was still raining when we checked out, and we noted that the Tioga Pass (which we had crossed two days ago) was closed. The rain and low grey clouds put paid to any ideas of more photography this morning, so we headed west to San Francisco.

It was a pleasant enough drive, and the weather cleared as we got further west. We got into Oakland around 3:00pm. From there the traffic slowed considerably, and it was a slow crawl over the Oakland Bay Bridge and into the San Francisco downtown area. We found our hotel (the Handlery) with no trouble, and checked in.

The Handlery is in a district called Union Square - full of up-market shops and galleries. The hotel itself is Very Nice, and our room opens onto the pool. (Too cold for swimming, though). The down side of this area is the number of beggars - probably more than we have seen anywhere else on our travels.

We had dinner at a place called Lefty O'Doules, which is apparently something of a local institution. Huge serves of roast meats, pasta, vegetables and salad for a much lower price than anywhere we have been. Excellent food, and excellent value for money. After that we went looking for a laundromat, which we found in a Spanish area of town. Back to the hotel wih a load of clean clothes, and so to bed.