Hoskinwood Family

Jason and I pulled into San Francisco Thursday night at 8:00, just as the sun was setting over the bay. We had been in the car since 2:30 pm the day before. I think all told, minus our visit to Dad, the drive was 30 hours. Fortunately, Jason is the perfect road trip buddy, not oversleeping in the car so that I'm bored or sleepy, never complains, plays good tunes, drives his share, and so forth. We stopped in Abiline Wednesday night to have dinner with Dad, Christopher and Carrie. We had some great barbecue and some good laughs before hitting the road again. We usually switched drivers every five hours or so and passed through Flagstaff about 5 a.m. I watched the sun come up as Jason caught up on a little sleep. The rest of the day was spent driving through the desert, lots and lots of desert. We spent about 4 hours driving through the Mojave Desert before pulling into Barstow, California, where we paid $3.99 for a gallon of gas! Now we felt like we were getting close! Just SIX more hours or so. The next town was Bakersfield and that was kind of cool to see since Kel and Stuart are moving there. Californians rip on it, but I thought it was kinda cute. It is a pretty large city, with 312,000 people. From there we hit highway 5 and San Fran was four hours from Bakersfield. You don't really see much except farmland - citrus, almonds, grapes, and many hills. The highway also follows the California aqueduct much of the way. As is typical, once we drove over the Bay Bridge into the city, we were promptly lost. It only takes one wrong turn right? We proceeded to spend the next 30 minutes driving in semi-odd circles around downtown. With the help of the internet and a laptop, we found our way to Haight and Fillmore, where Dave and Laurette live. Gerzy and Dave met us downstairs to help us unload our car. We could not leave a single thing in it, because they told us that some guy's car got broken into for a jacket. Luckily, Dave has a garage that he rents out in his building, for his motorcycles, so we were able to put the bulk of our stuff down there.

It has been so great to see old friends! I had not seen Dave and Laurette for about three years, and Gerzy for about four. Laurette finished law school here a year ago and Dave works in the computer industry. They have an awesome apartment with great windows and wood floors, and much larger than I pictured a San Fran apartment to be. It wasn't long before we cracked open a few beers and made our way to the rooftop. What an amazing view! They are across the street from a beautiful church too.

We have had an amazing few days, full of fun activities. I will put up a post about our fun weekend tomorrow night, when I have some more time.