May 24, 1990
After traveling through Sacramento at night and seeing all the lights on the river, I awoke again as we were passing through Richmond on Interstate 80. At daybreak, I finally saw the city of San Francisco through the haze, as we crossed the Oakland Bay Bridge.
The youth hostel in the Fort Mason area was huge and I ran into some familiar faces from the youth hostel in Texas. It was funny how so many travelers followed the same route!
As usual, I walked everywhere. Though exhausting, I found this was the best way to explore in any new location. My journal records,
“I walked all over town today from Fishermans Wharf, North Beach, Coit Tower, Transamerica Pyramid and China Town. Oh, the smell of fish and garlic around the city, and the pungent smells in Chinatown were wonderful! There was a movie being filmed right on the street and we had to wait for them to finish shooting!
“I visited the Greyhound baggage claim one more time with no luck finding my luggage, so I high-tailed it to the huge North Face store. Bought the best backpack I could afford. Wow, it is so much easier to carry!”
May 23rd, 1990
“Bryony, from South Africa, and I walked from the hostel at Fort Mason to the Golden Gate bridge. Just like in all the pictures you see, it was characteristically misty. We took a bus to Fillmore Street and California Street to check out some clothing stores. It feels very European here and reminds me of many places in London, only with less rain!”
New Vintage.
In Truckee Marylin had given me a few clothes and a small backpack, but I needed to restock everything and do it for cheap! Back in London I bought lots of clothes from vintage stores selling American clothes from the 1930’s to the 1960’s. Now, here I was actually in America visiting thrift stores crammed full of similar clothing!
My Journal says, “Bought a pair of jeans, 2 dresses, shorts, a silk shirt and two A’s t-shirts all for $8! I paid by the pound in weight for clothes – it was fabulous! I needed some trainers (sneakers) so I stopped in a sports store and bought some Michael Jordon purple and yellow converse for $20. Feeling so American!”
(I loved these shoes and wore them for years!) New note – my now 17-year-old son tells me those same shoes would be worth hundreds of dollars had I just kept them!!
Back at the hostel, I decided to call my mum and share my latest news. But this time she had news for me! Turns out the Police in Oregon had pulled over a known drug dealer with a bunch of luggage in his car. One of them was mine! Crazy! Inside there were still copies of my resume with the name of my previous employer in London on it. I had planned to use it to help find work in Australia. The Police Officer called the New York (J. Walter Thompson) Office, who then called my old boss in the London office, who in turn called my mum! They were all worried something terrible had happened to me, but mum reassured them I was alive and well. This awesome Police officer would forward what was left of my stuff to the hostel!
Thursday, May 24th, 1990
Alan Armstrong , of the Gold Beach Police Station, was amazing. He would deliver my luggage to Legget, CA, the hostel I had picked out because of its remote location in the Redwoods. It was the Memorial Day holiday weekend, so I took the overnight bus up the coast to have some time alone to figure things out.
