We are finally in San Francisco!

After 14 gruelling hours in the car today, 3 brushfires, 2 car accidents, and 1 car fire, we made it to the South San Francisco Hampton Inn...

We said goodbye to the cats and headed out of Phoenix at roughly 4:30 this morning... Ouch! Our first stop was the McDonald's in Blythe, CA at about 8:00 AM. I was a little bummed because I missed photographing the State Line, but a Sausage McMuffin and a cup of coffee cheered me up some. We accidentally forgot to get gas and didn't realize it until way after the "Next services 60 miles" sign, so that added a little excitement to the trip... Luckily we made it to Chiriaco Summit with 0.9 gallons of diesel to spare. As a bonus, we also got to see the George S. Patton Memorial Museum! It wasn't open, but we got to see a HUGE statue of Patton, and quite a few tanks behind the iron fence. If it were closer to 9:30 AM (when the museum opened), I would have begged Michael to stay, but alas, it was only 8:43 AM. So I decided that a picture with Patton was an acceptable substitute.

We continued on to San Bernadino, where we stopped at the California Welcome Center to stretch our legs, take a look at all the cheesy souvenirs, and take photos with the California sign. After that, we were back on the road for a bit before lunch in Santa Clarita, at possibly the nicest McDonald's I have ever seen! I found myself internally commenting on how nice the fixtures and furniture were, and thinking, "Hmmmm... I wonder where they got those?!" Then I had to remind myself that I was at a McDonalds. Ha-ha.

The drive up I-5 was uneventful, aside from the car fire, but the trip across 152 was quite exciting! There were three brush fires and one accident, but all of them were on the other side of the freeway, so our progress wasn't impeded that much. We finished off the drive with a stretch up the 101, and accidentally tried to check in to the wrong Hampton Inn... But the front desk staff was nice enough to call the one we were booked at to make sure our reservation was on the books, so it was back in the car to the correct Hampton Inn. We arrived at 6:30 PM, checked in, relaxed and ordered some great Italian food we had delivered to the room... It was a perfect end to a very long day.

Tomorrow Michael and I are going to BART it into the city and start looking for apartments. I hope we find something this weekend, because school starts Monday! Yikes...

I'll keep everyone posted on how the hunt goes!

66HM5 (and Michael) out...