September 2017 and we were heading south from Oregon. Our newest granddaughter, Cassidy, had arrived and we were headed to San Francisco to meet her for the first time. Our youngest son and his wife live in the city so down I-5 we went with a brief stop in Weed. Yes, there really is a Weed, CA. In front of Mt. Shasta, is the small town of Weed. The town was named after a sawmill owner, Mr. Weed. During the 70's the town was going to change the name because of the negative connotation but at the last moment, they decided to capitalize on it.
After a great lunch at the 1950's Hi-Lo diner and a stop for t-shirts, we were back on the road.
Once in San Francisco, we had to do the tourist thing including a splendid lunch on pier by the ferry building, and a boat ride under the Golden Gate and by Alcatraz Prison.
Our new granddaughter was and is beautiful and our time there went faster than we could imagine.
We did have time to visit Muir Woods again and hope to go back.
Of course, no trip of mine would be memorable if there wasn't good food involved. A stop at the Pickles Place in downtown Arco for an atomic burger which turned out to be a first class burger. And the atomic burger, named for the most amazing town around, Atomic City, ID. Here is the way Fast Company magazine put it. "Atomic City, Idaho: located at the edge of an 890-square mile nuclear complex, Atomic City was once called Midway–until the world’s first electricity-generating nuclear power plant, Experimental Breeder Reactor-1, was built next door. The town boomed, wholeheartedly embracing the promise of the Atomic Age.
But it didn’t last. In 1955, the EBR-1 suffered the world’s first partial meltdown; six years later, another neighboring nuclear power plant, the SL-1, lost three employees in a nuclear accident so grisly that the victims needed to be buried in lead coffins sealed with concrete. The town declined; the population dropped.
Now just an interesting roadside stop.
Next time, on the way to Yellowstone.
