Sat Nav and San Francisco don't mix. I set off early to beat the rush and had gone one block before the sat nav told me to "return to route". For some reason it lagged at least a couple of blocks behind and wanted me to turn left all the time. (something the City authorities seem to have banned as it just wasn't possible).I switched it off and used the man method .... I just drove with a rudimentary street plan. A mere 14 miles later I ended up heading north over the fog shrouded Golden Gate Bridge. It may be a lot shorter than the Humber Bridge but it is way more impressive.
The journey up to Reno was fairly uneventful with no wrong turnings and yet more spectacular mountain scenery. I turned off the interstate a few times to have a look at stuff including the "Donner Lake Park" near "Truckee". There I found a pine cone as big as my shoe.
The scenery and scale is so vast that it takes your breath away. I am beginning to get an understanding, I think, of why Americans are the way they are. I can only guess it has something to do with the sheer size of the place.
Man cannot live by juice alone. If I don't get some vegetables inside me soon I may end up like Elvis. This diet is playing merry hell with the internal economy. I had a salad when I arrived which admittedly contained lettuce and tomatoes; however it was sabotaged by blue cheese, bacon strips and a very heavy dressing.
There is an ad here, which is very funny, for a lite beer which applauds the "genius who invented...". It goes something along the lines of "The taco salad; a 12,000 calorie feast of ground beef, cheese and a few sorry scraps of lettuce....is it healthy? It's a salad aint it?!"
Now its time to be a high roller ... or more likely a low roller as I have never been a gambler. I hope don't get a taste for it....
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