We’d been planning a road-trip through California for a long time and finally we got a chance a do it. Here’s what we did, day-by-day.We stayed overnight at a hotel by Heathrow to give us plenty of time. We weren’t flying until midday but we take ‘erring on the side of caution’ to extreme lengths when it comes to flight-times due to some horrendous experiences my wife has had in the past.
For example, a fairly common arrival time calculation might be;
Flight Time= X
Necessary Arrival time at airport =
X
-3 hours (recommended time to get checked in)
-1 or two hours travel time.
However the calculation we might typically use would be something like;
Necessary Arrival time at airport =
X
-3 hours (recommended time to get checked in)
-1 or two hours travel time.
-Time needed for traffic.
-Extra time in case of breakdown
-Time needed in case of a breakdown IN traffic
-Extra time needed in case of Alien Invasion OR Zombie Apocalypse
-Extra time needed in case of Alien Invasion AND Zombie Apocalypse
-Extra time for Alien Invasion and Zombie Apocalypse while broken-down in traffic.
Etc.
So it’s easier to just get up a day early and sleep next to the airport. On the upside it means we start the holiday with a full breakfast, cooked by someone else (the best sort of cooked breakfast).
The flight itself was pretty long; 11 hours to San Francisco from London. I kept myself amused by watching Zootopia (awesome!) and losing repeatedly on FTL (pro-tip, oxygen is important to the crew)
San Francisco customs were quick and friendly and after a hair-raising taxi ride (the driver was watching the road, technically, it’s just the presence of other cars / people didn’t seem to affect his decision-tree at all).
We stayed at the Sheraton at Fisherman’s Wharf which was good and comfortable. We had enough time to see the Sea-Lions and grab a pizza before passing out.
Herring's Fishbait 