Getting Equipped for the Journey

Shep the faithful sits resting before the big journey. Oh yes, that's one of his stablemates next to him. And the one next to that. And the one next to that. That Cruise America company sure does rent a lot of RV's!
see all photos »

Well the day dawned foggy and cold in San Francisco.  Which brought back the old torn feelings about which is my favourite Californian city.  Most people hate LA as a rite of passage, but I feel a distinct connection with the place, and there is much to be said of an area where the sun comes out most of the time - despite all it's drawbacks of smog, lack of soul etc etc.  I love the architecture and layout of San Francisco - but the weather really is lame.  Middle of summer and the beaches are still too cold to swim in, it's foggy half the time and you can't see all those great hills and bridges that make the place great.  So for now I'm going to remain straddled on the fence and say I like the feel of San Francisco but would probably always plump for LA when it came to actually living there.  I'm a child of the sunshine and I've come to terms with this.

I really only had one objective - and that was the picking up of the RV for the journey and the stocking of the larder.  Oh, and the small matter of assigning a name to the faithful vehicle for the duration of the trip.  The poor vehicle is probably very mixed up when yet another set of tourist rents it week after week and keep assigning anthropomorphic titles to it's inanimate self.  Anyway, I've decided to christen it 'Shep' due to the registration number, which starts with 5HEP.  So from now on the RV will be referred to as 'Shep'.  Expect a suffix once easily identified personality traits come out.

Navigating the arduous challenge of RV rental

Dad and John decided to join me in collecting the RV instead of goign shopping with the ladies - not sure if they realised what they were letting themselves in for - a BART ride to a less-than-salubrious part of Oakland, a trudge up the footpath to the rental place.  Then a 20 minute instructional video on how to use the RV - which is really just a video monologue put together by the rental company after seeing just how stupid the general public can become 'always detach the power cord before driving away'.  You can easily imagine an RV driving up the road with a pole still attached.

But the other thing the 'lads' let themselves in for is shopping anyway, as I had to go and fill the larder with 9 days worth of supplies.  This proved to be tricky, as I had looked up a Safeway before leaving and programmed it into the TomTom.  But when we got there a height limit on the carpark thwarted our plans.  I managed to find a big enough park out near the loading dock, and wedged Shep into it.  Which was fine until we returned and not only were we parked in - and I'm not making a word of this up - we were parked in by a guy doing panel repair work to a ladies car.  There he was with his hammer and dollies, a slide hammer and suction cups pulling dents out of a little red Honda.  In a supermarket carpark next to a loading dock.  I kid you not.  However once we loaded up and put the reverse beeper on they scarpered-  presumably because the first lot of damage was inflicted by a reversing RV or something.

The other amusing thing was the 'safeway card'.  If you've never shopped in an American supermarket, well, they put stuff on special, but only if you're a member of their little rewards scheme thing.  But you need a US address to join, obviously.  So I asked if I could join but fill out the applicaiton form and put it in the post, fulling intending to use the application card as an ice-cold beer coaster in short order.  The girl knew what i was up to (and it wasn't just the carton of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale), but acquiesced and handed over the card anyway.  But then she got me with 'seeing as you just saved $30, you can donate to out local charity'.  Err - you got me there.  So I donated to the charity and she gave me a smug 'got you there' look.

So tomorrow it's an early start and off to the mountains, camping in Sequoia national park.  I personally can't wait to be  back in the mountains there - I just love the Sierra Nevada (the mountains, not the beer, though I don't mind a drop of that either!  Tomorrow I'll be putting the two together!)