Day 6 - San Francisco

What a mixed bag of a day!!!!

The day started off badly. We were in an Urgent Care centre for most of the morning. No one is hurt, and no one is sick. Jess got a cotton bud stuck in her ear. It totally disappeared and we couldn't tweezer it out. I couldn't even see the bloody thing. A quick google search shows that it was likely to cause an infection and removal by a doctor was recommended. Rather than risk problems further into out trip we decided a doctor was the best course of action. Lucky I did the travel insurance because it was a $165 just to someone to take a look and then an undetermined value for further treatment. Some phone calls, faxes and a £40 excess and we were in the treatment room and the bud was safely removed with no incident. We'd lost the morning but we hopefully saved problems and discomfort down the road. Jess is doing fine :)

Plans were changed whilst we were waiting for the ear irrigation works to begin. We got a cab to Fishermans Wharf and picked up the bikes we had reserved. We then cycled the bike path to the Golden Gate Bridge, then over it, then down into Sausilito for a ferry ride back to San Francisco. This was amazing. The views of the bridge are great and this is definitely the best way to see the Bridge.

After we had returned the bikes we made out way over to the cable cars. We waited for over an hour to get onto one, but we go on. The funny thing is, the stop we wanted was only 5 minutes down the road. It was worth the wait for the experience and to also avoid walking up another San Francisco mountain.

Back at the hotel, we changed and made our way to the Top of The Mark. A plush restaurant and bar at the top of a very posh looking hotel. The views up here were awesome. The sun was just setting and we got great views of the night skyline looking out over the city. We had a drink and also had dinner (barely enough on the plate to resemble a main meal). This was the perfect way to end the day.

Today we had noticed a lot of closures along the bike path. We learned of this Government Shutdown that has come into effect as Obamacare goes live. Not sure of the politics behind this and we've been enjoying our holiday too much for this to have hit out radar. But this is bad news for us. Very bad news. All the National Parks are closed which puts us right up shit creek. We're supposed to be heading to Yosemite tomorrow, a highlight of the trip. The Park is closed. Death Valley. Closed. Grand Canyon. Closed. Zion National Park. Closed. Joshua Tree National Park. Closed. Feels like a disaster for us. I've looked for info online and as best I can tell the road through Yosemite is open (but stopping and recreation is prohibited). The facilities and hotels (including ours) are all closed. I've booked us in another hotel near Jamestown which is about an hour so so from the entrance to Yosemite. Hopefully we can stop there tomorrow night and at least drive through the Park from West to East the day after, which is part of what we had planned. They'll be no way we can get to the famous viewpoints though. Gutted.

 

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