Goodbye San Francisco

Today is Annette's birthday so we walked down Lombard Street to Mel's Dinner, complete with juke box and retro interior, for breakfast.  It felt like we sere on the set of Happy Days.

Mel's Diner - Birthday Breakfast for Annette

We loaded up the cars, set the GPS and headed East.  We wove our way though the CBD crawling through the traffic and regularly commenting 'how did we ever manage in the days of only having a map to navigate by?'.  Once we finally left the outskirts of San Fran, the stress levels reduced dramatically. Roads were  still busy, but at least the traffic was moving at a reasonable speed.
We stopped in Merced for our first Walmart experience.  It's amazing how much time you can waste looking at piles of useless junk!  We did stock up on a few supplies before heading to Mariposa and our 'home' for the next few days.  It had rained overnight and there were a few showers, but the weather cleared along the way.
We are staying at Bear Park Retreat.  It is an Airbnb and doesn't look much on the outside.  Inside is a whole world of bears - mats, lampshades, light fitting, bedding, photos, you name it, it has bears on it.  Kind of weird, but certainly shows commitment to a passion for bears!  The boys were a little disappointed that there were no beers in the fridge.  I would love to see a real one, but apparently they are asleep for the winter.
We were going to go out for Annette's birthday, but ended up making use of a kitchen to prepare our own delicious dinner, including cherry pie for dessert.  Only problem was that we catered for about double the number of people.  Guess there will be plenty of leftovers to make a picnic lunch tomorrow.
We are off to Yosemite National Park in the morning.  Weather is looking good for the next couple of days so we might even stay for another night to make the most of the walks.  Thankfully, the Federal Budget has been approved for the next couple of weeks, so should be able to get to visit the Parks as we had planned.

Bears and Beers

Birthday Dinner.....