I got home from the show at Tech TV and sat down on my bed. It was another long night, as I muddled through my final exam in the hotel room. I got up at 5am and started out for my final day in San Francisco... only, it wasn't going to be IN san francisco. Nope! The mission for the day was to see what Yosemite Park was all about.

As with the prior days, the morning was chilly. That of course didn't stop me from taking the top down and driving on through San Francisco's bay bridge over to Oakland on the way to Yosemite. The drive after Oakland's morning rush-hour went pretty well. This was one trip that I hadn't mapped out very well. There were several entrances to Yosemite, and I needed to do the one that got me in the park the soonest- and one that I could return to as soon as possible, since my car was due in no later than 7pm.

So, I high-tailed it out there.

The view on the way to Yosemite was interesting. The yellowish hills were spotted with dark green vegetation. I got a few shots of the area, but mainly stayed on the road since I didn't know how long my visit in the park was going to be.

When I entered the visitor's center, I asked the ranger how long "the drive" would be. In fact, the park isn't so much of a route, it's more like a really big area of land. You can cut through it to get to Nevada, or you can stop anywhere you want to hike/camp/kayak, or whatever suits you. I hit the road and headed for the falls.

The view was spectacular from the roadside. There were enormous rocky cliffs, with sheer faces of grey stone. Evergreens lined the mountains in most areas, and there were scattered water falls and creeks among the roadside. Truly a beautiful place.

I pulled along side of a creek and got out of the car to chill out by the water. It was nice there in the shade, and I sat on a log just watching the water go by. This was a nice, tucked away spot where other people weren't hanging around, so I got a chance to hear the sounds of nature and just relax a bit. I then headed home.

It was funny- I had planned on dressing warmly in case Yosemite was like Yellowstone, a mountainous park with cold air and caribou. Goes to show how important research can be though, since Yosemite was pretty much a desert, and I was wearing jeans, a long sleeved tshirt and a hat. Yech. It got to be so hot that I had to put the top back up and turn on the air conditioning. It stayed up until lunchtime on the way home.

I caught a bit of rush hour on the way back from Oakland into the San Francisco area, especially on the bay bridge, but it was still nice. The open-aired bridge towards the city is less noisy than the Oakland-bound direction, and with the car's top down, it made for an enjoyable city view.

I had about an hour to kill before I needed to get the car back to the dealer, but I didn't wait around. I just dropped it off and looked for a place to eat. Since I had so much fun at the wharf not too many days earlier, I decided to hop a cab out there and spend an evening just chilling out by the bay. I looked for a swanky hotel and found the Hilton, with (just as I was hoping for) a line of taxis. I caught a cab over to the wharf and walked around the piers for a bit.

One of the sea lions had returned, and was chilling on the pier, so I got a better look at him. What a bizarre creature. A tourist was nice enough to take a shot of me after I took one of his family. I don't normally swap cameras on trips alone, but this was nice, because all my shots before this were all on a timer. That's one thing that definitely sucks about travelling alone. It's harder to capture the experience on camera. There were all sorts of street performers out this time that weren't out the last time I was by the docks. I watched an artist for about an hour as he painted beautiful scenes with nothing more than spray paint cans and torn-up paper. Awesome.

After I had a chili dinner (in a bowl made of sourdough), I took a walk down the piers and ultimately ended up sitting along the shoreline of the bay. I wanted to hang around the area to watch the sun set over the golden gate bridge. It would be a great way to end a really nice week in San Francisco. I watched as the sun got closer and closer to the horizon, and eventually tucked itself behind the hills of Sausalito.

I came back to the room and got some sleep. Three hours later, I'd be on the BART, heading to the Oakland airport. I checked out of my room, walked a few blocks to the subway station, caught a bus to the airport and was in the air to Long Beach.

....but more on that later.