San Francisco, the progressive city

Today, our daughter guided us to a complete walking tout of San Francisco. Solely walking maybe not, but we’ll return to this. Our morning walk began at the San Francisco Golden Gate Park that at over 1,000 acres is larger than NYC's Central Park. 

This iconic spot includes attractions like the Japanese Tea Garden, San Francisco Botanical Garden, and Conservatory of Flowers. The longer afternoon walk took us to the Embarcadero another mandatory place for any City visitor, located at the water edge, followed with a delightful dinner at Dasha, a Russian restaurant. 

Returning home was the main attraction though as we boarded a driver-less Google-Waymo taxi (see video below). These are available since 2021 and while they were 300 in operation two years ago, there are now 800 of them being made available to the public. 

It’s that car which took us back up the hill to our daughter’s charming apartment with expansive views of the San Francisco city center and East Bay.

The Waymo ride was a first for us that comforted us that self driving cars will soon be the norm for baby boomers that otherwise would no longer be able to drive, but instead will get a salutary extension through AI technology! 

Cruising up the Pacific Coast

We’ve driven California Route 1 for the first time from North to South in 2022 and on May 1 of 2026 we did it again from South to North. It’s important to note that California’s Highway 1 through Big Sur fully reopened on January 14, 2026, following a major three-year closure caused by severe landslides and roadway collapses that began in early 2023. 

The closure, spanning roughly 90 miles, was one of the longest in its history, with crews repairing damage at sites like Paul's Slide and Regent's Slide. 

This time it wasn’t as spectacular as we were driving on the hill side of the route instead of enjoying more of the seaside views, but was still as exciting. Traffic was light, and the morning for in many past took away some of the beauty of that drive. 

Still, the entire drive was never boring, which goes a long way in saying that California is really a gorgeous state. 

We made it to San Francisco late afternoon after we climbed the hilly streets of the neighborhood where our daughter lives. We were delighted to see her and to personally deliver her automobile in excellent condition. 

That evening as we were walking I just just stumble and fell on my left knee, as I was looking at some building up above. At the time, I simply hoped it would be alright. 

We were delighted that we made it in one piece after another 1,250 miles (2 000 km) drive. As for me, the driver, I was glad the trip was over!

From the Alabama Hills to the sea…

Alabama Hills like the ones found in Lone Pine, California, between the small town and the towering Sierra mountain chain.

The Alabama Hills are a range of hills and unique rock formations that we visited on Thursday morning and have been for a very long time a popular filming location for television and movie productions, especially Westerns set in an archetypally rugged, isolated setting. 

Why the out-of-place name “Alabama?” Because the nearby hills were named for the CSS Alabama, a Confederate warship deployed during the American Civil War. When news of the ship's exploits reached prospectors in California sympathetic to the Confederates, they named many mining claims after the ship, and the name came to be applied to the entire range. 

The place became an ideal place for Hollywood to shoot films. The first known movies to be filmed there are the lost films Water, Water Everywhere and Cupid, the Cowpuncher, both shot in 1919 and released in early 1920. 

Since then, hundreds of movies have been filmed there. After that it was a long, scenic, turning, twisting, scary-narrow, with few guard rail protection and a never ending mountain road across to Backersville, followed by a tamer itinerary to the Pacific with plenty of agriculture and oil drilling to complete the scene. 

The Pacific Coast would be where our journey would stop for the day as we ran out of continent, in Cambria, a small coastal town on Route 101. A full day of driving, sightseeing and fun.

One additional National Park

We have seen many American National Parks and without falling into a "collecting habit”, it’s always tempting to add an extra one to the list. That’s precisely what I did this time by visiting Death Valley National Park to our personal list. 

Not that I ever had good things about that place, but because it happens to be one of the favorites from French visitors and I wanted to know what the redeeming values of the place do to a Gallic crowd. So, outside of Zabriskie Point and the Sand Dunes, I wasn’t impressed. As a result, I still don’t understand why my countrymen are so infatuated with that Park. 

I suspect it’s because in July 1966, a French adventurer and former paratrooper named Jean Pierre Marquant, then aged 28, successfully hiked over 100 miles through Death Valley in extreme, record-breaking summer temperatures ranging from 100 to 130 degrees Fahrenheit, a feat many experts thought would kill him. This factoid must have made a searing impression on the minds of the French tourists. 

We ended that second day on the road in Lone Pine, in California. Founded in the 1860s as a supply hub for gold and silver mines, Lone Pine was originally a rowdy frontier town. It was decimated by a massive earthquake in 1872. 

Later, it became "Hollywood’s West" as the primary filming location for hundreds of classic Westerns in the Alabama Hills. Today, the economy is driven by tourism, acting as the gateway to Mount Whitney (highest peak in the lower 48 (at 14,505 feet or 4,421 meters) and the Alabama Hills. 

It should thrive on hikers, outdoor enthusiasts, and film history buffs. One may wonder if local services, mining/quarrying, and accommodations can support the community, alongside a notable percentage of government workers? Still, at least to me, the town seems to be slowly dying as it seems incapable of capitalizing on its incredibly beautiful mountain background.

Return to Las Vegas

Our more recent road trip began at the end of April, as we set for mission to bring our daughter’s car on its last leg of a cross-country trip that took place begun in October 2025. We began with a first stage between Park City and Las Vegas, Nevada. I have been to Las Vegas, a quintessentially crazy town more than 20 times and have spent close to 120 days in that town when I attended the ski industry’s annual shows. 

I thought I knew that place well except that the last time I was there was in 20 years ago, in 2006, with a goal, among other things of attending an Elton John concert at one of the local Casinos. When we got to town late afternoon on April 28, I couldn’t believe how the place had changed, it was just unrecognizable. Not only that, but now check in operates like at the airports, at kiosks, without any human interaction. 

This didn’t work, not just for us old folks, but for most guests that were totally dumbfounded by the impossibility of the task. We were just pissed, as we should have been. We finally got in and went to a nearby hotel to see KÀ, the unprecedented, gravity-defying production by Cirque du Soleil  takes adventure to an all-new level. 

Be awed by a dynamic theatrical landscape, as an entire empire appears on the KÀ colossal stage and a captivating display of aerial acrobatics envelops the audience. That show redeemed our terrible check-in experience at our hotel and almost made worth it. I shouldn’t go that far to say that Las Vegas is worth the 6 1 ½ hour drive from home, but we’ll see… 

From Coast to Coast

My first coast to coast, American trip happened in 1971 when, upon arriving from Australia, I boarded a Greyhound bus in Los Angeles and went from city to city all the way to New York before traveling to Montreal where I caught my flight back to France.

Little did I know that it would be the prelude of a series of long road trips spanning over 55 years. The second big trip included my wife and our two rambunctious young children (5 and 3) that took us from Chappaqua in New York to Park City, our new promised land in 1985.

Between 2007 and 2012 we took a few road trips between Utah and Berkeley, California, where our daughter got her first job. In 2012, I accompanied my daughter to California as she switched from her small car to a nicer station-wagon. In November that same year, as she got a governmental position in Washington with the US Government, our daughter drove her car back to Utah and my wife and I drove it to Virginia where she lived.

It’s only in October 2025, when things started to unravel with Trump, that our daughter left her great job to return to California. We kept her car in our garage with the intent to drive it back to San Francisco in the spring and that’s just what we did between April and May, making a side trip to Las Vegas, Death Valley, the Pacific Coast and a second cruise North along Coastal Highway 5 in California.

If we add this all up we’d get to 13,700 miles. It’s a bit hard to say that we came full circle, but we’ve seen a lot of America over the years and we’re glad we did. In the next few blogs we’ll relate our adventures as we drove along...

Trip planning with modern tools

In the past, going on a trip was 20% planning and 80% improvisation, but I don’t know about you, for me this process has been turned on its head too! In a next blog you’ll read about our recent trip to California in which we delivered our daughter’s car that we drove last Fall from Washington, DC, to Park City. 

This time our mission is to get it all the way to San Francisco after making a detour to visit spots we had never seen before and return to others we liked a lot. To put that plan together, I began 10 days before departure playing with Google maps to see where we’d go and stay, how long it would take us to get there and build some kind of itinerary. Not to leave any stone unturned,

I checked with AI to get a modicum of approval, which I failed to receive, so it was back several times to the drawing board. In between, I even check for entertainment since we had one stop planned in Las Vegas and wanted to see at least one new National Park, draw a quick budget on a spreadsheet, factoring in the high cost of gasoline as we wouldn’t be driving our electric car for that one-way road trip, and of course bought a pair of return plane ticket to get back home. 

Quite a program, too many confusing choices and a lot of time needed to digest all this and let it mature into a more practical plan! What’s certain is that technology added a lot of time to a complex decision process that was a bit overrated for a simple road trip!