But it also meant that our time in San Francisco was nearly over and the next day we would be heading off to Groveland near Yosemite National Park.

We weren’t so eager to get up on our last morning, whether it had something to do with the wine we had consumer the previous night or the fact that our legs and feet were aching, I don’t know but we made it to breakfast then headed back to the room to pack. Once we were all ready, Rob and I went round to get the car from the car-park, then headed round to the hotel to load up. It wasn’t long after we got going that I mentioned to Rob that I thought the car seemed a bit funny and it was making a strange noise when we were going round a corner! The noise got progressively worse to the point where I pulled over and we got out to have a look at it. I’m not sure what we were going to do, or what we were looking for, but it made me feel better that

we had looked at the engine! Hmmmm what were we going to do, it definitely wasn’t right and I didn’t want to chance it driving all the way to Yosemite, especially across the central valley where temperatures routinely reach into the hundreds!! We knew we had breakdown but I suggested that we take it to Oakland airport as we would have more chance of swapping it there. This was where we had picked up our other car so knew that it was a pretty big and we maybe able to just exchange the car rather than faff around with the breakdown people. The noise got worse and worse and I wasn’t very happy about having to drive over the 8 mile long Bay Bridge in a dodgy sounding car! Thankfully it got us to Oakland and we were able to swap it. The only problem was that the only mini van they had was a Dodge Caravan, a smaller version which meant that it had quite a lot less luggage space, but it was better than nothing so we had a very very cramped 3 hour drive to Groveland! We were definitely going to have to