Leaving San Francisco

05 Oct 2012 (Friday) San Leandro, California - San Francisco International Airport - 30 miles

Our final day in the USA.  We had a fairly leisurely start to the day and had breakfast before packing our bags for the final time.  We also cleared out the 'tour bus' of all the coats, umbrellas, maps and books which had been living in the vehicle for the past month.  I then tried to catch up with the 'blog' and as evidenced here, failed entirely!  We sat around in reception and read for a whilst before finally checking out of the hotel.  I, for one, can certainly recommend the Marina Hotel in San Leandro as a base for visiting San Francisco.  Although it does mean you have to travel into the city, it is not too time-consuming or expensive to do so.  Balance against the much cheapest cost of accommodation, this doesn't seem unreasonable.

With the 'tour-bus' loaded for the last timed, we headed south down the I-888 for about 10 miles before turning west onto the SR-92.  After about 2-3 miles, the road heads out onto the San Mateo bridge which runs for 12 miles across San Francisco Bay.  At the far side, we headed north again on the SR-101 the few miles to San Francisco International Airport.

We found the rental car drop-off point fairly easily and unloaded the 'tour-bus' for the last time.

We walked across the car-park and caught a monorail train into the main terminal where we checked our bags in before heading through security to await our flight.

The flight was rather full and we were slightly delayed in leaving as a passenger had decided, after checking baggage into the hold, that they didn't want to travel after all.  This had a 'knock-on' effect to our departure and arrival time later.

Not long after we'd taken off, a Senior First Office came down to see us.  He apologised that he had been unable to move us 'further up the cabin', an euphamism for upgrade, as the flight was so full.  Talking to him, I discovered that he knew quite few of my work colleagues and that he too was in the RAuxAF.

After dinner, we settled down to sleep as much of the 10 flight as possible

BA Flight from SFO - LHR  ETD 1605 ETA 1100 (day +1)
Weather - Clear skies and sunny with some cloud around.  There was a breeze, but not unpleasant, temperatures in high 60s