Forty-five minutes later I was out of the city, across the Bay Bridge, and onto I-580 headed east towards Tracy and Stockton, where I"d catch the I-205 freeway until I reached a series of smaller interchanges that would eventually put me in Valley Springs. By the time I reached Tracy, my stomach was painfully reminding me that I"d skipped breakfast. I was saved by the looming golden boomerang shaped arrow of the In-N-Out sign—originally a Southern California restaurant I frequented as a child and missed dearly as an adult. They"d eventually opened up shop in Northern California, but the city only had one and it was in Fisherman"s Wharf, a place I tended to avoid, not just because it was a tourist mecca, but also because it"s the place I"d gone to prove to myself that ghosts weren"t real an
