Day 11: San Francisco to Sonora

We had to bid San Francisco goodbye today_ so soon too :-( _ but we could still make the use of the morning.

We woke up and realised that New Zealand were in fact playing Italy in the world cup right at that moment so quickly found a live sports channel. This was at a decent time of about 8 am! We watched thew full second half and were delighted at seeing New Zealand's historic best soccer achievement to date: a tie with the previous World Champions!

After this was finished we went again downstairs to the breakfast bar and had a very nice breakfast again. It was also Fathers day here in America, but we told dad he couldn't have two in a year!

After this we packed our bags again and set off towards the Golden Gate bridge.
Before reaching this however we made a stop at Golden Gate park for a walk and look around, which was great (and involved a waterfall, more turtles, and another squirrel).
Finally noticing the time (11:30AM) we set off on our trip, first towards the Golden Gate bridge.
This was as expected spectacular to cross with great views back towards the city. Then we began our road trip inland, almost directly East.

A while of driving followed, through primarily flat plains at first, getting steadily much warmer in the car. By the time we arrived in a smell town on the way for lunch for lunch (just Subway today) we were very hot, and it wasn't much better outside the car either. We ad certainly left the cold San Francisco behind.
After lunch the terrain became rather more hilly and we could even see snow on some high mountains in the distance, but we wouldn't be very near these today.

Passing through Oakdale and carrying on to Jamestown we stopped to look at an old railway (actually used in heaps of Hollywood movies including Back to the Future III). Jamestown itself was a Gold mining settlement from a similar time to New Zealand's Gold Rush.
We found a great Ice cream store and antique stores before moving on to our final destination: Sonora.

Arriving we were very hot and happily the hotel (the oldest Historical one in the town) had a swimming pool which we made good use of. we eventually picked ourselves out from the pool and went across the road from this Gunn House Hotel for a great but overly huge dinner at the Steakhouse.
To walk our dinner off a bit we took a look round the main street and dad was very pleased to see a great many Alfa Romeos evidently on a tour. After finding a few supplies for the following day, we headed back to the Hotel, where we turned in for the night.