The next morning, we got up early to head for San Francisco. Cooked up bacon and pancakes for breakfast. Broke camp, packed up the trailer and hitched it up to the car. We got back on highway 1, to get to the 101 North.

We were now heading towards the Portola Redwoods State Park Campgrounds. On a map, this was the closest campground to San Francisco. This would be our basecamp for the next four days, and driving into the city each day to see the sights. It took longer driving than we had planned pulling the trailer.

Turned off 101 towards Saratoga, then to CA-9, the road to the Portola Campsites. The road got steeper, with many switchbacks. Now, it was really slow going pulling a eighteen foot trailer up the mountaIN. We had not realized how high up the campground was going to be. As we were driving, it sounded like something was rolling around in the trailer. It was a narrow road with no place to pull over, so we just kept going.

Finally, we arrived at the ranger station, checked in, and got our campsite number. It was on a hill. Big surprise opening the door to the trailer. Pancake mix and maple syrup covered the floor. Several of the cabinets had opened, and other supplies had spilled out. We volunteered Mike to start cleaning while Dave, Ralph, and I went to the ranger station to see if there were any other campsites available that would be flatter. We also wanted to find out how long a drive it would be to San Francesco. The ranger said the camp was full, there was nothing else available and the drive time to San Francisco usually takes about two hours, depending on traffic.

Our plans to drive into the city every day started to dissolve. We’d be spending most of our time commuting, and we certainly did not want to make the drive back up the mountain in the dark. Ralph said, “That settles it, we’re going to stay at a hotel in San Francisco”. He used the payphone at the ranger station to look up hotels in the Yellow Pages and made a reservation at Del Webb’s Townhouse Motor Hotel in San Francisco. It would cost $45 a night for two people. Ralph had his dad’s credit card and said we could pay him back later. We hadn’t budgeted for for staying at a hotel, but we didn’t have much choice.

Feeling good about the decision we had made, so we could actually spend time seeing things in San Francisco, we headed back to the trailer to tell Mike. He had most of the floor clean and was working on putting things back in the cabinets. We were all talking as Mike was slamming a cabinet door to get it closed. Bang, Bang, Bang! There was a brilliant flash of light. We all screamed. I thought the gas stove had exploded. No, Ralph had been playing with his camera and had set off the flash.

The trailer was at an angle that made it impossible to use the gas stove to cook on. We didn’t want to make a campfire, so we had cheese and crackers for dinner along with other snack foods we had brought. It had been a long day of driving. It was difficult sleeping that night, trying not to roll out of bed.

Got up the next morning, anxious to head to San Francisco. Our plan was to have Ralph and Dave check into the hotel so we would only be charged for two people. We thought we would just go on through the lobby entrance, driveway, park the car and trailer in the back, and no one would know that there were four of us.

Mike and I were sitting in the back seat, and we crouched down as we approached the hotel entrance. We were just about to drive through when a bellman ran out, waving his arms wildly and yelling, “Stop!, the bubbles, the bubbles!”. There were these bubble light fixtures hanging down that the guy thought the trailer would hit. Ralph slammed on the brakes. The bellman ran over to the car and told Ralph to go around to park in the back. Bubble disaster averted.

After parking, Dave and Ralph went in to register. Mike and I stayed in the car and waited for them to let us in the side entrance so no one would see us. Dave held open the door, and we dragged all of our stuff to the room.