Confessions of a Hit and Run Tourist - Day Ten

[Riverbrian]

I have recently completed a solo 18 day road trip covering 8 ballparks, 9 games, 14 states, national parks, normal tourist traps and not so normal stops. My fairly new 2022 Kia Seltos had 6,400 miles on it before the trip and the journey tacked on 8,522 additional miles. Some of you may find this interesting and some may say what's the big deal, it's a crazy man with a torture filled vacation plan. I was encouraged to tell the story here by individual day because it would be a very lengthy post if not broken down by day. Some days are not that interesting, some days were more interesting than others and some days need a new adjective, but each day was different and they were days that I couldn't experience in my living room. 

Feel free to comment, shake your head at my moments of stupidity or tell your own experiences of the places I experienced. This is hit and run tourism... I didn't have a lot of time to hit all the stops but I wanted to hit all the stops because who knows if I would ever be back in any of the areas travelled. I researched and scheduled the trip to the minute and followed the schedule to the letter. 

Day Ten - August 7 - Modesto to San Simeon, CA

It is Sunday morning and by some miracle I am leaving on schedule around 6:30AM. I will be spending the morning in San Francisco followed by an afternoon game in Oakland before heading down the Pacific Coast southward. Just in case anybody is wondering how Modesto became the chosen place to camp out for the night with the Bay area next to be discovered, I can thank Priceline for that. The Hotels in San Francisco and Oakland were priced unbelievably high, I know I tend to exaggerate a little on occasion but I'm not exaggerating when I say the prices were around 300 bucks for a Motel 6 type operation. While expanding my search outward to find cheaper accommodations, Priceline chimed in and suggested this Baymont in Modesto for around $125 and I said... You Got a Deal and I shook hands with Priceline.

I got a little bit of sleep but not very much. Off to the left, this hotel was nestled... nuzzled is a better word... next to a busy multi-lane Route 99, seemingly inches from my room. The walls could not resist this constant traffic sound. Every Motorcycle sounded like Evil Knievel was jumping my bed. The traffic noise was incredible, you would have to experience it for yourself to believe it. I thought I would have to look both ways for traffic as I exit the room. However, I was tired, so I managed to get use to the sound and I did drift off to sleep, Momentarily... because off to the right, which I was not aware of because of the darkness arrival... Surprise!!! Railroad Tracks. I don't know if any of you have ever been awoken from a deep sleep by a loud train horn. In case you haven't had the pleasure... YOU HIT THE CEILING!!! While you mutter "WHAT WHAT WHAT" like the train was asking you a question when you were not paying attention. Then you try to drift back to the sleep to the clackity clack sound that goes on for a while because each train had some apparent length to it. THREE TRAINS would roll through that night at full speed and at a certain speed... the train horn is required by law. Go Ahead... Google Map the "Baymont Modesto/Salida", You will see for yourself how they impressively squeezed this building in between these two incredible noise makers. Call it the Stealers Wheel or Gerry Rafferty Hotel if you will... because you are STUCK in the MIDDLE and the walls are just not sufficient. 

You would think that it couldn't be any worse but if you thought that... you would be wrong. Because... I kid you not. A car alarm from a Tesla parked next to my Kia... went off... not once but 5 times just to join the party. 5 Times! not in succession mind you but at well spaced intervals throughout the night. The first time I got up to check if it was my Kia... the 2nd through 5th time, I just stayed in bed and timed how long it would take the owner to calm it... in case you were wondering... About a minute each time. I wasn't sleeping so I had time to ponder what was setting off this Tesla so consistently, the only conclusion I could come up with was... car thieves who were not very good at it. If this was indeed the case, I considered going out to help them. Rapid Eye Movement would not be achieved tonight,, the last blast of noise from the car alarm was about 5:30... I said to myself "Screw This" I hit the shower, packed up and set off for what was going to be a long day sure to be longer due to the lack of sleep. I am serious when I say this: I would have gotten more sleep if there was Mariachi band playing enthusiastically in the corner of my room all night. BTW... I have seen maybe one Tesla in the wild up in North Dakota. They are all over the place in California. 

My route to San Francisco swung north, through Berkeley and across the Richmond Bridge just so I could enter San Fran via the Golden Gate Bridge, I took a quick nap on the way with adaptive cruise control and lane assist functioning properly. I had been over the Golden Gate once before but I took it again because I remember the view of the San Francisco skyline and wanted to see that again. It was hit and run tourism in San Francisco as I checked out the legendary stuff. Height/Ashbury... the clock on the corner said 4:20 while my watch said 9:14, there is a Ben and Jerry's on the opposite corner of course, Jerry Garcia's old place was a couple of blocks away. Drove by the Painted Ladies., I hit Lombard Street, which I attempted to drive as fast as I could, which was not very fast at all... because the straightaways are very short. There are roads... busy roads in San Francisco with inclines so steep that you feel like you are pointed straight up to the sky and declines so steep that you feel like you are driving straight into the ground. These inclines caused my transmission to give me the middle finger. I've never seen a transmission temp warning icon before but in my Kia, that icon is shaped like a middle finger extended. I apologized and hoped that the car would forgive me.

Food was going to happen in Chinatown. The only other time that I was in San Francisco, we took a cable car to Fisherman's Wharf so Chinatown was going to get my attention this time. Finding a parking spot in Chinatown took quite a bit of driving around because it is jam packed with people. Just a little tip... do not look at your cell phone while walking, you will collide with someone. My research suggested that I had to have Dim Sum at the Good Mong Kok Bakery for a true San Francisco treat. The reviews were glowing and lots of people were reading those reviews because the line this Sunday morning was stretched around the block. This line blocked the doors of multiple open restaurants that could have fed you while you waited in line. Talking to the people waiting in line around me, everybody agreed that the Shrimp was the best. The experience was as close to Seinfeld's soup nazi episode as I could ever come. The building is very narrow with no room for tables. You literally walk in a couple feet sideways to the counter... place your order... slide over a couple of feet to pay... get handed your food and then you slide out behind the person who is now ordering. You don't really see the yellow and red menu on the wall until you get in and there is immediate pressure to order RIGHT NOW falling from all directions, you know the line behind you is long and the person taking your order is giving you the... I don't have all day look. There were over 40 different choices to consider and you have to perform RIGHT NOW and you have seen the menu for 3 seconds. It's like a waiter coming to your table, handing you a menu, and after 3 seconds taking the menu from you, while asking what will you have. BTW... you can't say Shrimp... You have to give the corresponding number. You say 19, 33 and 34. The dumplings come in sets of three at a cost of 3 bucks so I decided to get 3 different orders for about 10 bucks total, I quickly chose the Shrimp, The Beef and for something different... the Shark Fin (I wasn't aware of the practice of finning before I chose it) because it was the unique thing that caught my eye doing that quick scan. Like I mentioned earlier, no tables, Chinatown is crawling with humanity so I took my food to the Kia, parked on a significant decline and ate it on the hood, while watching the plastic container closely in case it attempted to slide off the downward pointed hood. About 27 million people walked past me while I dined in this fashion and it felt perfectly normal. The people in line were right... the Shrimp was very very good but... to be honest... I liked the Shark Fin better. Which has created a new problem. Turns out I have a taste for shark fin with no chance to scratch that itch in North Dakota. Afterwards, I walked Chinatown, checking out the many things that I couldn't identify but found interesting to imagine in my mind what they were. 

It was a very enjoyable morning in San Francisco but it was time for that change. it was time to cross the Bay Bridge to Oakland for the game. I'll just get this out of the way. Just mere blocks from the stadium, the streets are garbage lined, I'm not talking about a candy wrapper and plastic bottle, I'm talking Garbage strewn on both sides of the street, like it hasn't been cleaned in a decade. Garbage at such magnitude that there are spots that you can't see the concrete. I understand that I'm not the cleanest guy in the world but this was too much. I don't care about city politics as two sides stare at each other trying to get taxpayers to fund these new stadiums, I'd rather not watch big money fight each other. Take the politics out... you just move this team to another city. Lake Tahoe... Anywhere.  

My Oakland experience was just going to be a baseball game, the A's vs. the Giants. GPS led the way and eventually I am funneled into a slow moving line. I don't see a stadium anywhere but the GPS said 0.2 miles away and I am in a slow moving line so it's very easy to trust the process. As I inch forward, providing plenty of time to soak in the garbage scenery. the GPS announces that I have arrived but yet... I do not see a stadium anywhere. The long line is all turning into a parking lot so I trust the process and enter the parking lot... I still do not see a stadium anywhere. All of us arriving from the long line are circling this large lot just looking for a space, this process is slowed because you have to wait for the foot traffic because you can't run them over and they all cross in front of you trusting you not to. After 30-40 minutes, I find a space and I start walking toward where all the people are walking toward... trusting the process... because I still do not see a stadium anywhere. The reason that I could not see a stadium was easily explained by a local gentlemen who was trying not to laugh at me. I was at a Farmers Market of sorts... A rather big one apparently, the stranger pointed and said to me "the stadium was about a half mile that way". 

I knew before hand that I wasn't going to stay for the entire game because I had an oceanside hotel waiting for me that I wanted to reach in daylight so I purchased the cheapest seats possible which put me way up in the top row of the stadium... Bob Uecker was sitting next to me. The cheapest seats in Oakland were more expensive than decent seats in other parks, which perhaps has a little something to do with A's attendance issues. The field is fine, it has dugouts and white straight lines but all the major league parks have that. The Concourse is cement, very tight and to get up to the top row, it takes a lot of up hill walking. All in All, it was an unimpressive stadium in an unimpressive city. It goes straight to the bottom of the 24 stadiums that I have seen. I can't help wonder what the commissioner thinks when he sees that garbage piled up nearby. Detroit isn't the cleanest city either but they manage to keep a couple of blocks clean around the stadium. The highlight was the hall of fame induction before the game, with Rickey Henderson giving a speech among others but this delayed the start of the game significantly so I left during the 4th inning, which was OK... I Came... I saw... I experienced enough of it. 

Next scheduled stop was Pebble Beach, I was doing OK for time by leaving early so I made an impulsive addition of Google and Apple to the itinerary since they control the world and it was sort of along the way. I crossed my 4th (The Heyward) out of the 5 bridges that span the bay. I had no problem driving around the Google campus, it was wide open and as you can imagine, it's a very large campus. At Apple... there were gates and security guards. I was told that they were not allowing visitors on Sunday so the security guard let me in... just to let me out. My instructions were to drive to the stop sign, turn right, stop at the gate, the gate would open and I would be off the property. He was very nicely ushering me off. I did as instructed but he left out an important detail in his instruction. Apparently, I was supposed to wait until the gate COMPLETELY opened. At home, when I open my garage door, I start driving forward while it is opening... can't do that at Apple. I pulled forward while the fully automated gate was opening and the movement of my car caused it to freeze and stay frozen. This gate also had it's own security guard and he doesn't operate the gate because it is automated from head to toe. The original security guard who tasked me with this mission came running from his location... maybe a 50 yard sprint, two other cars with tourists who were also being ushered off the property are now behind me. The security guards are asking the other cars to move backwards just so I can back up, pull forward, back up, pull forward, back up, pull forward in an attempt to trigger the gate and it wasn't working. The security guard gets on the two-way radio, declaring a security gate malfunction with some sort of code that sounded a lot like my dim sum order and in less time then it took the Tesla to turn off his car alarm, 4 egg shaped vehicles (yes... they were white and they were egg shaped) with engineers in them show up and they began work on the gate. Eventually, one of the engineers, with a security guard nearby for protection I assume, walked up to my window and told me "it should work now... this time make sure the gate completely opens before you pull forward" which was a nice way of blaming it all on me. I said "Thank You... I will... may I suggest a sign with this specific instruction" He assured me that "there will be meeting shortly to remedy this in the future". I drove off laughing for a bit because... Anybody can get ushered off of the Apple Campus... I, Riverbrian, from North Dakota... BROKE APPLE. I am the reason that they will call a special meeting to fix a security issue AT APPLE!!! I have a Samsung Phone, I am perfectly OK with the hell I hath brought.  

On the way to Pebble Beach, I drove through the town of Gilroy which professes itself to be the "Garlic Capitol of the world". A roadside store in the shape of a barn was advertising Garlic Ice Cream about 10 feet from the exit needed to get there so I flew into that exit at 75 mph, jamming on the brakes as I slid into the parking lot with a cloud of dust drifting into the wide open doors of the facility. The store had signs saying "10 Dollar Minimum purchase" and also had a sign saying "No returns on the Garlic Ice Cream". The Ice Cream cost 3 bucks, I'd estimate that it was a quarter cup in size and I found it interesting that most of the other smaller items cost exactly 7 bucks. My math tells me that this adds up to to the 10 buck minimum purchase required, which clearly indicates that the Garlic Ice Cream is the gateway to other things. I bought a 7 dollar variety bag of nuts since I drove past all of those nut trees yesterday and I tried the Ice Cream. It was just fine... almost every other flavor of ice cream was better but it doesn't make you gag or force you into a slightly funny facial expression, It was almost flavorless to be honest, you can eat it all and live to tell the story, I didn't need to return it. I tossed the empty tiny quarter cup carton into the garbage and drove off with my nuts.  

Beautiful isn't a strong enough word to describe the 17 mile drive that Pebble Beach sits on, I'll use Magnificent as the adjective. I shot a 71... in my head, which is amazing because I usually shoot a 106 outside my head back in North Dakota. You get some views of the golf course, forest, ocean views with large rocks poking out of the water, incredible homes that have to cost more than $200,000. There are what I assume to be domesticated deer hanging around because they had no fear of humans, they don't let you walk up to them because they do move away a step or two as you approach but they don't run. They just kind of say... that's close enough buddy. Carmel-by-the-Sea was also magnificent, Only considering all of the territory that I covered on this road trip, if I had to pick the spot to retire with my billion dollars. Carmel/Pebble Beach/Monterey Peninsula would be that spot. I know I'm ocean temperature inclined compared to inland temps without a doubt.    

Looking back on the entire trip and all of the incredible scenery that I saw with my own eyes... If I had to choose the scenery that ranked #1. It was Highway 1 from Carmel down to San Simeon. The Pacific Coast highway is a longer version of Lombard street and it has it all... Ocean, Bays, Mountains, Hills, Valleys, bridges built into the sides of mountains, steep cliffs and crabby elephant seals. This part deserves a longer paragraph but there is so much to describe and it changes mile by mile for lots of miles. If you like scenery like I do... The PCH has it all. I'll leave it right there. My words won't do it justice anyway.   

I was trying to make my hotel on the water in San Simeon by daylight and I did...Just barely, I was able to check in, drop my bags off, head to the beach and I didn't have to wait long to watch the sun fall into the ocean. The sky goes from blue to orange and as the sun is hitting the water, it produces what looks like an orange walkway across the water toward the beach to the breakers. Then the darkness darkens step by step. I sat for a while in the dark and just listened to the waves that I could no longer see crash, crash, crash, crash. The perfect end to what was a really great day. 

I got by just fine with no sleep, I don't think I yawned at all... not once. However, believe me... I crawled into bed and I was out like a light. I can sleep in tomorrow morning... I am scheduled to depart at 9:45AM.      

 

 

 

[ashbury]

I would have gotten more sleep if there was Mariachi band playing enthusiastically in the corner of my room all night.

That would cost you extra.  You only get so much for your $125.

[Riverbrian]

11 hours ago, ashbury said:

I would have gotten more sleep if there was Mariachi band playing enthusiastically in the corner of my room all night.

That would cost you extra.  You only get so much for your $125.

That Motel 6 in the Bay area at $300 a night probably had them in full dress.