The start end the end of our tour through the western states was San Francisco, a fantastic city at the pacific coast. It's located around San Francisco Bay and connected to other parts of the city like Berkeley and Oakland by huge bridges, the most famous being Golden Gate Bridge.
While in San Francisco, we stayed in the YMCA in Downtown, although there are probably better places to spend the night. The YMCA there is a typical YMCA, not well maintained, even dirty in places, but still the cheapest hotel you can get in Downtown. It's ok, if you don't stay more than three days. By the way...the so called breakfast menu essentially consists of a 3-day-old muffin...I don't have to mention the horrible taste, of course...
We basically had only one full day to see San Francisco, so we took the usual tourist route, starting with Twin Peaks, from where you have a nice view of the city (weather permitting).

Next stop was Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park, a beautiful park at the pacific ocean. Then we went back to the YMCA and took a ride with the cable car from Union Square to Fisherman's Wharf, the water front and harbor of San Francisco.
To make it a round trip, we walked back via the districts North Beach, an area with beautiful houses for the better situated of us and Chinatown, a colorful part of the city. This is really what I had expected from a place called Chinatown.

To do something for the night, I can only recommend the Hardrock Cafe, because that's the only place we've been. Although a tourist trap, it has a quite nice atmosphere and even good beer (for american standards). However, I bet there are better locations than that for the night...

Arches National Park / Bryce Canyon National Park / Canyonlands National Park / Capitol Reef National Park / Crater Lake National Park / Death Valley National Monument / Grand Canyon National Park / Lassen Volcanic National Park / Las Vegas / Lava Beds National Monument / Mesa Verde National Park / Monument Valley / Mount Rainier National Park / Olympic National Park / Petrified Forest National Park / Point Lobos State Park / San Francisco / Salt Lake City / Seattle / Sequoia National Park / Valley of Fire State Park / Yellowstone National Park / Yosemite National Park / Zion National Park