Day 1: BARCELONA - SAN FRANCISCO - RENO
Friday, October 9, 2009
Today, as almost always when we go on one of our trips, we have to start the day early, this time at 5 in the morning. We are on our way to Barcelona airport, to T1, the new terminal. We are totally unknown, we were in May of that year at the airport, when we were traveling to Jordan and it seems incredible that it has changed so much.
After a walk we go straight to check in and we have our first surprise. In the flight London-San FranciscoThey give us separate seats because the plane is going full. It does not make us too funny, although we try to get the positive part out soon and after looking at each other we deduce that if we are separated we will have time to review all the things we have what to see in the western United States and review the manual we bring about drive an automatic car in San Francisco, something we have never done and we are not very convinced to catch the peace of mind at the first.
With our tickets in hand, we leave our checked bags and go to the boarding gate thinking that we will ask in London to see if they can do something.
The flight from Barcelona to London, leaves with a little delay and that already makes us a little nervous. We only have an hour and a half to make the link with the flight to San Francisco and the London airport can not say that it is especially small.
And as we feared, it was a race to be on time to catch the flight from London to San Francisco.
Shuttle bus to the other terminal, train to get to the boarding gates and runs to the doors. In the end we arrived by the hairs.
In the end a passenger changes our seat so we can go together so well, this seems to start rolling.
We had a pretty comfortable 11-hour flight from London to San Francisco, within hours when we changed positions and tried to get some sleep to be cool when we arrived in San Francisco and we had to take the rental car in the States United and drive a few hours to shorten the road to Yellowstone, the first of the parks we will visit on this trip to the West Coast of the United States.
But another surprise still awaits us: they have lost my suitcase !! We only have Roger's after waiting more than 40 minutes in front of the tapes waiting for the miracle to occur and appear. At the complaint office they tell us they will send it to West Yellowstone, which is our destination tomorrow and give us a $ 50 card for the inconvenience. They think that with that they solve the problem of going to a place where they are at -10º without appropriate clothes.
After making the claim and losing more than an hour, we headed to the car rental center, taking a train that takes us directly to the office area.
More practical information to prepare your trip to the United States
- 10 essential tips for traveling to the United States
- The best travel insurance for the United States
We do the paperwork in less than 15 minutes and after almost two hours since we landed in San Francisco we already have our rental car in the United States, which will accompany us during the 26 days of travel in which we will cross the West Coast of the United States and the National Parks.
Before we get on the road we have to learn to drive an automatic car in San Francisco, so it's a few laps around the parking lot to start taking a little control. Above all we have to be careful with the left foot, since it is not the clutch, but the brake. It takes a bit of getting used to and in the parking lot we are giving a few accelerations and braking before getting into full exit from the San Francisco airport. After almost 30 minutes learning to drive an automatic car We left the parking lot.
Driving an automatic car in San Francisco
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As soon as we leave the airport area and enter the surroundings of the city we see that it will not be as easy as we thought. We have to face a large caravan to leave San Francisco, so we lose another hour of travel, which with the sum of the delay of the loss of luggage and the rental of the car, we have almost lost 3 hours and we still have to Reach Reno, where we have booked the hotel tonight.
After 1 hour of travel we can no longer and begin to recognize that it is dangerous to continue driving when it is closed night and the eyes begin to close, so we decided to look for a hotel, losing the reservation of the other we had in Reno.
In these moments we remind ourselves and we promise that we will never consider doing something like this again after such a long trip. It really is an unconsciousness, but when planning it we saw the opportunity to beat those hours tomorrow and so go more calm in the trip to Yellowstone.
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Arriving at the hotel where we have decided to stay tonight we have the last surprise of the day: we stop for the police, stopping with the sirens on. The truth is that we still do not know why, since we believe that we have not committed any infraction, but when we see the face of tiredness and fear, we believe that we have given it more pain than anything else and it tells us how to get to the hotel that we are looking for although Our GPS tells us, there is no way to find the exact street.
We think it's a lie, after 26 hours without sleep, we are in a king bed, in a huge room and finally we will be able to rest and close our eyes.
Tomorrow will be a most complete day: 13 hours of travel to reach our first great travel destination on the West Coast of the United States: Yellowstone.
Day 1BARCELONA - SAN FRANCISCO - RENO
