Much more relaxed day today and a lot less time in the car.
We only had a one hour drive from where we stayed last night to the Golden Gate Bridge. We went to the north side of the bridge first to check the view from the look out.
It was quite a tortuous route to get there and we thought we had got ourselves lost a few times. We are finding that the sun is very low in the sky at this time of year and as we are heading south, we are struggling to take photos into the sun.
The Rowe/Kincaid clan doing the selfie thing. It was then off to cross the bridge which luckily and by chance, we found out that you had to pay a toll. Of course, you were required to get online and create an account but they will not take out of country number plates. This then meant a phone call to set up an account to pay the USD$9 to cross it – that is rather expensive we think. Imagine if you had to cross it twice a day for work.
So having battled through the administration issues of paying our toll, we successfully got to the other side.
We found the southern look out point as we wanted to see if we could take a less glary photo. The bridge span is 1.6 kilometers. Construction commenced in January 1933 and was opened May 1937. The Golden Gate is the most used suicide site in the world – not a claim to fame you would want to advertise. The bridge cost $35 million to build back in 1933 and to install suicide barriers in 2017 cost $200 million…..hmmm.
On the south side of the bridge a 36.5-inch-wide (93 cm) cross-section of the cable, containing 27,572 wires, is on display.
We bumped into two lovely young ladies who were stewardesses for British Airways and had a 48 hour layover. They had such proper English accents and we found out they were from Buckinghamshire which explained it. They were kind enough to take a family photo for us.
It was a quick trip out of San Francisco, and we hugged the coast heading south. There was a plethora of choices for us to have some beach time and for Toque to have her first exposure to sea and sand. It looks crazy with us wearing our puffy jackets, but the wind was cool even though the air temperature was +17c. Toque and Di actually got caught in a wave. Toques reaction was that of a stunned mullet as to how suddenly she was in water up to her tummy when just before she had been racing around on the sand. Di just felt stupid and ended up with wet sandshoes.
We thought this was a pretty cool picture so included it.
Our total distance was about 200 kilometers, so we got into Monterey at a reasonable time which allowed us to settle into our motel and then head out and explore. Neither of us knew anything about the place though the name seemed familiar.
We stumbled our way to the old port area called Cannery Row which has been revitalized to a trendy eatery place. The industry here was fishing but that collapsed in the 1950’s due to overfishing – how many times have we heard that.
Travelling with a dog has its challenges and especially with one that cannot be left alone. Most nights we pick up something from Safeways and heat it in our motel room in a microwave but tonight we found an Italian restaurant that allowed us to sit on the balcony overlooking Monterey Bay with Toque in tow. They also provided an over head heater and……….seals frolicking in the bay right below our balcony. Great end to a fabulous day.
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