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After a luxurious night in Bakersfield ,free breakfast and a leisurely start around 9am, we set off for San Francisco.
The landscape around Bakersfield was field after field of fruit trees and vineyards as far as the eye could see on either side of the dead straight road. Some times the green was broken by fields of flowers, mostly sweet williams in vivid colours. The fields were being tended by the workers in big Mexican hats as the temperature was already 89 degrees. The fields have portable toilets every fifteen to twenty rows, a sign of the times. This was only achieved by heavy irrigation of the land, otherwise it was just desert.
After about 100 miles the slogans urging the government to change its policies on water reduction began to appear. “Fruit grows where water flows” and “dust bowl created by congress.” and “ No fruit =no jobs”. Also some dead acres where the trees had been allowed to die in a protest at the water cuts.
As we headed for the hills and the Pacheo pass the weather began to close in and the predicted storms began, first with high winds then pouring rain. By the
time we reached Gilroy for lunch at Dennys, it was a deluge and about 57 degrees. Out with the waterproofs to get into the restuarant. This was the first time we had seen any real rain since leaving England.
We soon got to the built up outskirts of San Jose and the traffic. The sat nav got us to our hotel without much trouble and we are now back to the cable cars and shops in Union Sqaure for our last night in the USA.
We decided to go back into Chinatown for a meal on our last night as we had had such a good meal in the Empress of China on our last stay in San Francisco. The concierge at the Hotel however recommended R&G's Chinese restaurant and gave us directions for getting there. We went early for a meal and had Crab, Beef and Seafood. It was all delicious and judging by the queue to get in by the time we left a very popular place to eat.
Tomorrow we will be catching our plane home to London and the Jubilee celebrations.
PS many of the pictures today were taken from a moving
car on the freeway.
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