Day One begins with me dragging myself out of bed 45 minutes late, forgetting my favorite jacket along with the plastic
filter holder to the coffeepot, the AC adaptor to my camera as well as the one to the CD player, the portable TV, and
who knows what else. Am seriously embarassed as I've spent the last 8 weeks planning every detail to this trip.
I stop at 7-11 to top off the tank while getting breakfast: their TWENTY-FOUR OUNCE vanilla coffee. Hey, it's only $1.29! And it's absolutely delicious!
Besides, who couldn't use 4 cups of coffee in an insulated jumbo mug which conveniently fits in the soda can-sized cupholders in your car?!
Unfortunately, the java doesn't help with my sense of direction. Confusion ensues within San Francisco. Highway 101 leads you inside the city then disappears and it's up to you to
navigate to the other end of the city and continue north - during rush hour, no less. Digging into my glove box, I
can't find my SF map. Where the
hell is it?!! Oh yeah, I took it out to make room for the maps I thought I'd actually use. Damn, damn, damn!
So I pull over and dig out the atlas map. That's when I happen to notice my Day One itinerary directions had
instructed me to bypass San Francisco completely by taking I-5. Oh, this is a horrible beginning. Not even
one day into a twenty-one day roadtrip and I'm lost. Maybe I should just go home.
Finally managing to cross the Golden Gate Bridge, I calm down as the bumper-to-bumper traffic begins to fade away and I begin to see (almost immediately) green fields full of
dairy cattle. WTF??
Anyhoo, let's see, what scheduled stops do we have today?
