Day 7: Travel Day
Welcome
Yesterday we travelled from Berkely to Sacramento.
There were complex logistical problems to be solved and Paul took charge yesterday morning, ordering the car to be packed at 9am so he could take all the equipment and put it in storage until the Bandago was ready to pick up. He headed off with Gabe in our Diamond Black minivan, the Chrysler Pacifica, king of the roads, and they loaded everything into a friend’s apartment before returning the minivan to the airport. They took a cab to Bandago’s San Francisco headquarters and picked up our Sprinter, another vehicle finished in Black, possibly Cosmos Black this time, and then headed to get a trailer from U-Haul before returning to the friend’s apartment and reloading all the equipment into the trailer. This is what van touring looks like, done to perfection by a crew of experts, Paul at the helm.
Tristan and I left the Airbnb and began a walk to our favourite breakfast spot in Berkely, an enjoyable stroll up Martin Luther King Way that was only improved by another day of pristine Spring weather. We arrived at Saul’s Deli and found a curbside table with a bit of sun and a bit of breeze, a satisfying blend of temperatures. Both of us ordered the same thing, a falafel platter with hummus, tahina, harissa, olives, feta, pita, babaganoush, and Jerusalem salad. We also ordered a pickle plate to share, and coffee, black and steaming, no cream or sugar, in a mug, the way we like it.
After polishing off our meals and enjoying a second mug of hot black coffee we enjoyed a bout of shopping, exploring Telegraph Street, home to a number of great vintage stores and various other interesting boutiques and malls. Young’s Backpacking was the highlight of this expedition where we browsed a great selection of backpacks, and I walked away with a tiny Nalgene drink bottle, a baby sibling to my 1Ltr workhorse.
Jonathan decided that he required a buena vista and walked up the Berkely Hills, a punishing climb but one that rewards you with a view of the entire Bay Area, all the way out to San Francisco and the Golden Gate. Liz required climbing of an even steeper variety and found her way to a bouldering gym where she hung and swung and sprung her way up the wall, I’m assuming.
Paul and Gabe picked us up from Berkely at around 3pm and we began our drive north on I-80, the Purple Heart Trail, the Dwight D Eisenhower Highway, the Eastshore Freeway, a fine piece of road with many fine titles that runs along the northern edge of San Francisco Bay before veering to the northeast and heading up into the Sacramento Valley. The Sprinter was a smooth and comfortable vehicle and handled the highway effortlessly, even with a trailer hanging off the back. Out the windows we saw fields and orchards, strip malls and billboards, and the Sierra Nevada mountains in the distance.
Passing the rows and rows of almond trees. California produces nearly 1.2 megatonnes of almonds per year.
After a couple of hours we were approaching Sac-town, as Paul calls it, and we saw buildings appearing where before there had been only farmland on the horizon. We were welcomed by the fantastic yellow steel work of Tower Bridge and crossed the Sacramento River into downtown, heading straight down the Capitol Mall, an arrow-straight avenue with an impressively domed neoclassical building at the end.
The evening was a time for celebration, for acknowledgement of the day’s achievements, and an opportunity for Paul to take us out to some of his favourite spots in his hometown. After checking into the Hyatt Regent Hotel, formerly home to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, we journeyed to a dumpling house and then afterwards to a fine public house where the beer was cold and there was pleasant outdoor seating. Foursquare.com user Todd Leon says of this establishment: “Great design inside. Check out the deck upstairs”. And we did, taking advantage of the still-perfect weather and enjoying one of the city’s highest rated balconies.
Tristan gets into some public mandarin foraging on the journey to the dumpling house while the author stands by to advise and assist.
He’s back. Tristan has another video and it’s a ripper, the highlights from our Spring US tour so far.