T-shirt weather! (at least in the afternoon)

Click here for the rest of Day 4 pictures!

So far, day four has been amazing.  We woke up in Reno to the smell of bacon and eggs, delicious.  After saying goodbye to the gaudy lights and casinos of Reno we headed to the beauty of central California.  Not having spent much time out west, my head has been twisting back and forth constantly, just taking it all in.  I've definitely had the urge to have Kat pull off so we could climb to one of the awesome peaks, though so far we haven't.  A trip to these ski slopes is definitely in my future.

On entering California we were stopped at an agricultural check point.  As Kat rolled down the window the man asked if we were from Ohio.  I could see the replies racing through her mind before, "Sure, yup" came out.  We guessed he didn't want our life stories.  He also asked if we had any agriculture.  "Um, clementines?".  Again, we didn't think they cared about our half a cucumber and four cherry tomatoes.  They let us through.

Geesh, four cars pulled over in one mile... The hills of California, and a radar gun.

Truckee restaurant sign

Having no plans, a look at the town of Truckee sounded fun.  We only drove through and yet, it didn't disappoint.  It was full of cute little shops and restaurants, one of which had quite the view of those who park in handicap spots.  There was also a sign for a weekly soup event, bring your own bowl and spoon, we'll provide the soup!  Too bad we weren't there on a Sunday; I wonder if tuppereware would have counted as a bowl?  Ooh, travel mug!  And how important is the spoon thing?  Ok, back to what actually happened.

The beauty of our surroundings only got better as we came to Donner Lake.  It was breathetaking!  As cheesy as this sounds, the sky was so blue, the trees so green, leaves were swaying in the wind in time to the water rippling across.  We then started hewading back up and the tiny back roads curved around and around as place after place caught our fancy, each with it's own quirky touches.  It was a beautiful reminder that this trip is about enjoying what we're doing, but also about getting more and more excited about the possibilities.

Back on the road and wahoo, it was 76 and sunny in CA!  Though, the sun burning down certainly reminded me that fair skin burns in the sun.  Sunscreen was tossed in the bag and we headed to Sacramento. After a quick stop at the public library to peruse the travel books we headed to the historic district and drove along the cobbled stone for a bit before finally parking.

in Joe's

We walked around for a bit before hunger started to dictate our path.  First it was homemade ice cream.  Then, before we even finished our cones, a sign led us to "Eat at Joe's.". We decided that advice sounded good and were quickly seated.  Our food (which ended up being some amazingly delicious nachos) was not so quick to arrive, in fact taking almost an hour.  Fortunately, we didn't even notice as we were planning and playing on the iPad.  Even better, they comped our meal!



headed to Alcatrez



San Francisco was next up.  We were able to enjoy sunset on the bay get caught up in the energy of the wharf.  Pier39 was pretty amazing as well, with a huge variety of food and shops.  We even stopped at a lefties store for Kat :).  Once again, food called and we stopped for dinner.  Also once again, dinner was not smooth sailing.  First indication, we saw a sign when we entered for Cajun fries, but then our waiter claimed they didn't have them.  Second, we waited forever for a glass of water.  The waiter for the table behind us came by three times and so we finally just asked him.  Then our waiter came back with only one glass.  Then we waited for the check, again finally asking the other waiter.  Lastly, the machine to validate our parking ticket broke and required three people from around the restaurant to fix.  A pleasant surprise was when we went to pay the ticket we found that it had been cleared completely (the validation was only supposed to be for the first two hours).

Our very full day is ending in San Bruno at Kat's grandfather's house.  Our first night in a bed so far sounds great!