Be sure to have friends who live there! Our time in the Golden City was made all the better by the hospitality of my uni friends, Felicity and David who have a beautiful home in Eureka Valley, in the vibrant Castro District. Known as the Castro, it was one of the first gay areas in the United States, growing through the hippie-fuelled 1960s and 1970s.

Walking through the area you came across a riot of colour looking up or looking down – the rainbow roads, as MoJo called them.

Before all of this though, we had to actually enter the United States – the thirteenth (and final) country on the Egerton World Tour. During the last seven months we had come across many different requirements for crossing borders. Luckily Tom had done his research. To enter China, we had to process our visas before we left Dubai (with numerous hand-completed forms, listing every place we were staying, the flights we were flying in and out on and so on, many in Mandarin), but we had only the narrowest of timeframes to apply: before our UAE residence visas had been cancelled and less than two months before we landed in China. Made it, just. Some countries required quite hefty visa processing fees in advance, others cash on arrival, some forms you completed in the air, some had tricky machines you had to work out how to use bleary eyed straight off a long flight in the early hours of the morning. We knew about strict rules on food items when entering Australia and New Zealand, but hadn’t expected the sniffer dogs and searches. Nothing, however, could have prepared us for our arrival in LAX.

We had got a little blasé about time differences by this stage of the trip – so had completely mis-calculated the flight duration from Cancun to Los Angeles. The flight left at 18.10, we had had lunch on route to dropping our hire car off at the airport (and luckily an afternoon ice-cream). We were due to land at 20.30 so figured we would get a late dinner after checking in to our hotel. There is in fact a three hour time difference, so we were facing a flight that was over five hours and we wouldn’t actually be landing until close to midnight our body time. We had also recklessly let our snack bag get perilously empty whilst in Mexico, and there seemed to be no food or drink available at all on board our United flight (nor TV’s I hasten to add). We coped pretty well, until we disembarked and joined thousands in a snaking queue that didn’t seem to be moving at all, to reach the immigration desks. I think it was at least two hours we had to stand in that queue, alongside US citizens and everyone else. At one point (as we split our last rice cake despite signs saying no food or drink) a guard took pity on us and ushered us into a marginally faster line. Once we finally reached the desk we were greeted by a smiley officer who was struck with the Machu Picchu stamps in our passports – initially we were worried that had been a bad idea, but he seemed more interested in travel tips than telling us off.

Once through, we had real difficulty finding the bus stop for the airport hotel shuttle (LAX is VAST!!! So many terminals!) We were using a free night we had with hotels.com, as we were flying up to San Francisco first thing in the morning. Once we found the right bus stop we had to call our hotel to send a complimentary shuttle, as of course we were not booked into one of the chains whose buses circulated endlessly round the airport. No, that would have been too easy. Molly was brilliantly helpful at stacking up luggage trolleys to while away the time (which we found were where she had left them when we returned the next morning!). On check-in, we asked the guy on reception what time room service ran until and received a chuckle and directions to a McDonalds, ten minutes walk away (who walks in LA?!) so valiant Tom returned with a pair of happy meals, a double whopper (no salad? Said Molly) and a chicken salad (only GF option). Our first American breakfast the following morning in the hotel was served exclusively with plastic plates, cups and cutlery – all thrown into a mixed garbage can (getting into the lingo). MoJo were completely shocked (but did enjoy some waffles and shhh we took A LOT of sachets of honey, jam and peanut butter to use while camping, result).

Initially in our plans we were going to drive the pacific highway south to north, but instead flipped our trip around to start in San Francisco and drove south back to LA, mainly due to the availability of friends at either end but it also meant for a more dramatic, cliff-hugging drive south.

We had bought quite cheap seats on our LAX-San Fran leg and were really worried about our baggage allowance, especially our carry ons (i.e. the girls scooter bags which we had already been told off for using in the airport that morning). But we needn’t have worried, as we had the nicest air stewardess on that flight. Molly helped out with the demonstration and we finally got a MoJo and pilot pic!

Landing into a sunny San Francisco, we took an uber across town to the Castro and made it in time for a fun, bonding burst of fresh air up Kite Hill open space with Felicity, Emily and Jacob. And Forrest Gump.

Back in the house a perfect kiddie dinner was prepared, a shared bath (well for the kids) and story (Matilda) before the adults had a proper catch up over delicious risotto and excellent wine (we found out later our hosts were keen home-brewers of wine!) Molly and Joanna were delighted to be in the company of friends their own age (with lots of toys) and it was fantastic to again be able to relax and let others take the lead for what we should see and do whilst in the city.

Tom and I took turns on consecutive mornings to run half marathons up and down the (at times vertical) hills, taxing but by this stage in the trip we had really done well to build up our fitness. We both reached the Golden Gate Bridge, I stopped to admire Giuseppe Penone’s La logica del vegetale (The Logic of the Vegetal) and Idee di pietra (Ideas of Stone) beautifully installed in Fort Mason’s Great Meadow. I think my morning had more sun and Tom’s more fog…

We had timed it well to be there over the weekend, so could all hang out together (these were the glorious days when some adults went to work in offices, remember?!). On the Saturday we headed out mid-morning into Castro, taking the Muni (subway) down to the Ferry Building to see the Farmer’s Market where we enjoyed the buskers and vegan food demonstrations. After a run around the skateboarders’ haunt of Vaillancourt Fountain, we had a traditional lunch of Clam Chowder (and pizza for the kids) at Boudin Bakery. 

It was such a nice afternoon, we spent it meandering all-round the Embarcadero to Fisherman’s Wharf, admiring the views of Alcatraz (we just missed a ferry across the bay so decided to skip a boat trip, which was a bit of a shame as it was too windy the rest of our time there but you can’t do everything). The kids played around with the interactive exhibits outside the Exploratorium such as ‘People Power’ and Fujiko Nakaya’s ‘Fog Bridge #72494’.

After pointing out and climbing on all the Sea Lion statues we could find, it was great to discover hundreds of real sea lions lounging at the end of Pier 39 where we also enjoyed an ice cream and Molly lost her cardigan.

To get back to Castro it made sense to have a ride on the traditional cable car, although unfortunately due to Chinese New Year celebrations the usual route was diverted so we had a rather longer journey home than anticipated.

The evening was one to remember, as we started off with a shopping trip to the local supermarket called Molly Stones – for Tom and David to pick up ingredients for a curry off! Felicity and I were willing tasters and it would be hard to pull a winner between an absolutely delicious Lamb Dhansak and succulent aubergine and raita concoctions taught to Tom in Sri Lanka.

The next day, after a taxing game of chess between Molly and Emily we all headed off to San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SF MOMA) for an arty day, really enjoying the permanent collection.

Highlights for the kids were the Alexander Calder room, the living wall and outside sculpture garden as well as videos by Hassan Khan (Jewel, with catchy dancing and music) and Andrew Nguyen (complicated narrative about a family divided between Senegal and Saigon but a nice comfy floor to sit on). I was delighted to find the exhibition ‘Soft Power’ curated by Engenie Joo with exciting work by Haig Aivazian, Marwa Arsanios, Cevdet Erek and others.

David cooked us a traditional San Fran marinated tri-tip steak on the bbq that evening – and ever since Tom has tried to replicate it, perhaps only almost managing it on his smoker back in London. It’s definitely an American cut of meat and has to be prepared in a particular way: and is totally delicious. Our diets have certainly got more sophisticated since university. They also taught us the game ‘good bad buffalo’ which came in useful during many family dinners during lockdown.

Monday morning was the beginning of the working week for the household (we loved watching Felicity taking the kids off to school on their electric bike – what blissful ignorance not knowing how little school was left for the rest of the year…) and we had to pack and get ready to collect a camper-van for the next chapter in our American adventure: the road-trip!