Overlooking the winding streets of San Francisco. Richard Carpenter/Daily Mail

Nevada Daily Mail columnist Richard Carpenter is taking a tour of the country in an extended road trip. He is sharing his experience in a series of articles. Accounts of Day 4 and Day 5 follow.

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Wednesday became our busiest day of the family vacation. I am writing quite late, following a long day spent in San Francisco. It has been many years since I visited this wonderful city, and it is still one of our greatest American Cities.

San Francisco is the gateway to the Pacific Ocean for our country. Once again, we found ourselves surrounded by the United Nations (more strange people and languages than you can imagine). I doubt if there is another city in America that has such cultural diversity.

We visited all the normal sights of the city. Of course we rode cable cars, and walked through China Town. I ate a snack that had some kind of meat and vegetables on a skewer. I am not dead yet, so I guess it was all right.

In the afternoon we took a boat ride around this world famous harbor. The Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz are impressive. Yesterday it was near a hundred degrees only a few miles away, but if you did not have a jacket this 16th day of July in San Francisco, you were going to be very cold.

My favorite venue of the day was driving down the infamous "crooked street." This road makes old "roller coaster hills" south of Nevada seem quite tame.

First of all, the slope here is very severe. I don't think it is as steep as a ski slope in the mountains, but it's not far from that. It was so steep that we kept our vehicle in low gear all the way down.

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The attached picture from my daughter's camera gives you some idea what this street is like, but it still does not do it justice.

When I was a kid Johnny Allison and I used to ride our red wagons down the hill from my Grandmother's house to Cox's Market. We often found ourselves in the ditch. I sure wouldn't want to try and ride anything else down this hill. It would make me and most of my bones as "crooked" as it is in the picture!

We are heading north to the Redwood country tomorrow.

I hope the fires that have been plaguing California don't get in our way.

Day 5: The Tree

It is the last day of our swing west on our vacation.

We will be stopping for a few days to visit family in the Seattle area. We are all happy, the pace of our travel has been frantic. They are all looking at me, (the trip planner) as if I am a slave driver complete with the whip.

We made one more great stop before reaching the west coast. It was the beautiful Redwood Forest areas of Northern California. If there is anything more majestic than these ancient trees I cannot imagine what it could be.

We stopped at "Chandlier Tree." For decades as old as me, this drive through tree has been a regular stop for vacationers to the Redwood Forest.

The opening is six feet nine inches high. I cannot remember what the width was, but they told us you had to fold in your mirrors if you wanted to drive through. Our car was just too tight a fit, so we chose to watch some a few smaller cars drive through.

One thing really stood out besides the sheer size of this old tree. Inside there were literally thousands of initials carved into the wood by previous visitors.

There was just one person working in the gift shop.

By the way, there is no attraction anywhere anymore that does not include a gift shop.

She appeared to not have any worry at all as to what people were doing to the inside of this grand old tree. It sort of made me wonder if the tree was in any danger.

Well, I guess they know what they are doing. In any case, if you ever travel this way, you must stop and see this tree. It is right off the highway and it is very easy to visit. It really is one of the great wonders of this wonderful west.

After a weaken of visiting family, we will be traveling to our next and final stops at Yellowstone and Mount Rushmore. See you in a few days.