I stopped in San Francisco for a bit longer than I'd planned. It's a great city, and one I would definitely like to live in some day, but I already know it pretty well, and this journey isn't about doing things I've already done. Plus, it's a much better place to visit when you don't have a car:

*WARNING about driving in San Francisco* It sucks! Traffic is horrible nearly all the time. The sidewalks are covered in people, so it's very difficult to turn and people are always jumping out into the street. The streets randomly switch between 1-way and 2-way. There are all kinds of curves and juts and windings to deal with all the hills. Parking during weekdays is ridiculous - obscenely expensive and difficult to find. And on the weekends it's a little cheaper but not much easier to find.

Now that I've got that out of the way, I hung around the city trying to get some work done in the morning, then headed over the Golden Gate Bridge out of San Francisco to Marin County.

Across the bridge was a vista point with lots of neat views:

Alcatraz:

The guts:

The Bay Area, one more time:

Then it was up the 101 freeway to visit my aunt and uncle in Santa Rosa.