Day 01: Road Trip to San Francisco (Scenic Route 5 changed us.)

Yelp was celebrating their 10-Year Anniversary in San Francisco, CA this past weekend. There were numerous events to attend, and I was lucky enough to get into two of the events. Thus, John and I decided to drive up to San Fran to experience the city since neither of us have been there before. We chose to drive over flying for cost reasons and to experience the scenery. Looking back, I would much rather fly...

Thursday, July 31st, 2014:
We woke up at 4:35am. John hit the snooze button to wake us up at 5am so that we could get 6 hours of sleep total. We didn't get much sleep because we were so excited and restless. Once packed, we stopped to put air in the tires and were officially on our way at 6:30am. Traffic was light and we stopped outside of Indio, CA around 10:30am. We switched drivers, and I drove us to Claremont, CA. This was our first stop so we could eat lunch.

Claremont was cute and quaint. There was plenty of grass with well manicured lawns. We drove through the downtown area and arrived at 50-Fifty Asian Fusion Cuisine around 11:30am. This place was a mix of different Asian cuisines and looked delicious. We were both hungry and dug in.

After lunch, we walked over to I Like Pie Bakeshop. I loved the sign out front, and the inside was just as cute. It had two large display cases filled with both sweet and savory pies. John ordered a Banana Cream Pie (large), and I ordered the Blackberry Pie (small). We took our pies to go and were on our way.

From Claremont, we took the I-210W to the I-5N. The I-5 is called "Scenic Route 5." It was not scenic but rather the most dreary part of the ride. There were plenty of rolling hills, but all of them were covered in dead grass. The landscape was dotted with political signs blaming congress for the drought in California. These signs were a constant reminder of how badly CA needs water. As we drove, I told John numerous times how this reminded me of the book "Grapes of Wrath," and I felt like we were driving through the dust bowl. We joked how this route was changing us, but the more we joked the more real it became. We grew antsy, agitated, and depressed. We started making up stories about the land and the animals. (We miss you Disenchanted Bull.) The new slogan for I-5 should be "Scenic Route 5 changed us" to let travelers beware.

This is outside Indio. I was too upset to take a picture of Route 5.

Over 230 agonizing miles later, we headed into Oakland. It was like we entered another world. Traffic was terrifying. Cars were merging left and right, speeding up, slamming on brakes, etc. Somehow, we drove over the Oakland Bay Bridge and finally made it to San Francisco, CA. The fog covered everything and was breathtaking. While I was awed by the scenery, John was still grimacing at the traffic.

Seeing the Oakland Bay Bridge for the first time.

The tunnel onto the bridge.

We arrived at our hotel at 7:30pm. The total drive was roughly 12 hours and we were exhausted. After settling in, we headed downstairs to Jasper's, the hotel restaurant. We sat in the back, where it was relatively quiet from the bar up front. Our waiter was knowledgeable and recommended the two items we were thinking about getting. For an appetizer, we got the crispy pork - which was melt in your mouth delicious. For an entree, I got the steak and frites which was a flat iron steak smothered in gravy on a bed of french fries. This was the best meal of my life. The steak was extremely tender and the gravy, oh, this gravy made everything better. I wanted to lick the plate clean.

Top Left: Crispy Pork appetizer

Bottom Right: Steak Frites AKA best meal ever.

Ending on a delicious meal, we made our way upstairs to rest for the next big day.