Virtual Greg

Today I hired a car and learned how to drive on the right hand side of the road. I’d booked a cheap small sedan but when I arrived they were out of stock and gave me a bright blue convertible at no extra cost. I’m not sure if I’ve even ridden in a convertible before. I suspect the manufacturer intended it be driven faster than I did.

Remembering to stay on the right is straightforward, but it’s easy to
drift off-centre, probably because you’re also sitting on the opposite side of the car. Intersections can be mysterious – I commented on that already. Some of the road rules are different, for example you can go through a red light if you’re turning left and no-one’s in the way, and there are four-way stop signs that are turn-based.  I drove round the local area, then out past where I work to the Los Altos hills, a semi-rural, mountainous suburb where Steve Jobs apparently lives. I took the 280 freeway back to Palo Alto.

Then my landlady joined me for a drive over the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County. We drove north up the 280 about 30 miles to San Francisco, where the traffic and weather suddenly got bad, through the Presidio parklands and onto the bridge. On the Marin County side is a lookout so we stopped
there, along with a couple of hundred other tourists, to look back past the bridge to Frisco. This is a great view, but often obscured by fog. Unlike in Melbourne, it’s a fast moving, wispy fog, like smoke. We tried to stop at Sausalito a few km north but got caught in bad traffic and ended up snacking in Mill Valley. My traveling companion had had enough of my mirror-world driving by this time so we turned around and drove back through the city, and got on the other southbound freeway, the 101. The traffic moved very slowly – I don’t think I’ll try to drive through SF again. I agree with the Lonely Planet on this – it’s a town where bike and TP works well.