I travel into San Francisco, go up and down the hills there, and take a tram ride. Then, in the afternoon, I go over the Golden Gate bridge, where I run into fog. Bummer. I turn left, out of the fog and onto the old Highway 1.
On the coast, I have to switch onto reserve gas—the last half gallon in the four gallon tank. At the next gas station I fill up with four gallons, and take off down the road a bit. Then I think: how did they get four gallons into a four gallon tank that already had a half gallon in it?
I turn around to go back, a bit upset at getting ripped off and just about to complain to the attendant, when the penny drops: the United States gallon is not the same at the imperial gallon. What a dick I would have been!
I continue on Highway 1, heading for Garberville, to the home of Kim Phelps, the first Peace Corps worker I met in Bolivia. Highway 1 leaves the coast and turns inland to join Highway 101 going north. At this point my speedometer cable drive breaks, so I must be careful until I get to the next city.
I reach Garberville and find out that Kim has gone south again, but there’s no escape from friendly families. I spend two days with the Phelps family, and then move on to Camas Valley, where Kim’s cousin Mike is constructing a geodesic pole house on his 80-acre hillside in the country.
I find this very interesting, as we used to build these model domes at design school in Wellington, and I’m able to help out by putting bitumen tar on the piles and inserting them into the ground. I also get a taste of the old Wild West by having a shoot at some tin cans with a revolver. It’s exciting—sort of.