What an amazing day this turned out to be !
As usual it started much too early with me updating the blog verbally into my iPad in an attempt to get my 'less than mobile' family out of bed at 8 a.m. as I had been awake since 6. Should have gone to the gym but we had a pretty busy day planned and didn't want to overdue it.
Once everyone was mobile, we bit the Bagel and coffee shops across the street from our hotel. The boys were really whining about wanting to go back to the Oracle and see where the Golden State Warriors play so off we went - 8 of us packed into our minivan and cruising back to Oakland.
We arrived at 940 and were told we couldn't enter the grounds until 10 when the team store opened. We waited a bit then zoomed in and took a bunch of photos around the outside of the building. We hit the shops and bought a bunch of stuff on sale but were unsuccessful in getting a tour as there was a season ticket holder only event taking place.
Another family somehow managed to sneak in and quickly run and have their photos taken with the NBA trophies mounted inside a case just in the doors a bit. Rats!
We saddled up and headed back to San Fran only to be stuck waiting for a toll booth for almost an hour. Once we got through there we quickly zipped downtown to find a parkade.
We forgot we had the Thule storage unit on top of the van so had to seek out and outdoor lot but no luck. We were able to find a hotel that agreed to babysit the van all day while we tootled around. Sweet!
We walked down through Chinatown and were marvelled by the sights, sounds and smells on the street. We had a great lunch at a restaurant with the sushi boats that go around and around.
We hiked down through the rest of Chinatown and up to Hyde street where the Cablecar Museum was. What a fascinating place! All the flywheels and cables that run the whole system in the downtown core originate from here. Wow is it loud too!
After a quick tour we wandered outside and grabbed the cablecar to Lombard street - what an exciting ride it was! I met some new people from Kansas and we had a great chat with the cable car driver. We arrived at Lombard Street but suddenly we got our wires crossed and decided we would keep on going all the way down to fisherman's wharf.
We toured around the wharf and saw some of the ships park there. The Golden gate Bridge was completely engulfed in low cloud and all we could see was the top tip sticking out.
There was quite a stiff breeze blowing from the west that was very cool. After a while we wanted to go back to Lombard Street but this time we had to hike up a mighty Steep hill six blocks! That was a good workout! Then we walked down the street for five or six blocks until we came to a bicycle rental shop. An executive decision was made to rent bikes and bike over top of the Golden Gate Bridge! Every city we have travelled to in the last decade, we have tried to rent bicycles to cover as much ground as possible in a short period of time and see the city. Last year in London was our most successful so we were eager to try this out!
They did not have enough bicycles for us at this location so we had to hike another 15 blocks closer to the wharf to the main location.
Once we arrived we had to watch a short video, get our helmets organized and then find bikes that were the proper size for all of us. We settled up and had to walk our bikes about six or seven blocks through the hordes of people before we arrived at the bicycle path where we could actually begin riding our bikes. We had a very stiff west wind in our face as we rode toward the bridge and it was a pretty serious workout. Many turns and many hills climbing and eventually we reached the entrance to the bridge. It was very sunny at the beginning, but the further we went, and the more we began to be surrounded by cloud. The pathway on the side of the bridge was not very wide and one side of the bridge was for bicycles only while the other was for pedestrians. We stop several times for group photos and pictures of different things whenever the sun shone through. Once we reached the centre of the bridge and began going downhill for the first time in the day, then we were making good time!
We reached the end of the bridge and decided to go into Sausalito for lunch and catch the ferry back to the mainland as we were exhausted from pushing wind. I would like to think we are all in pretty good shape but that was a pretty serious workout! We weld our way down the hills along the bay and into Sausalito. We ended up at a restaurant where we were given a free beverage with our entrées that were absolutely delicious.
There was a ferry at 6:30 and 730 so we hurried down after six to see if we could make the 630 but it was packed and we had to wait for the 730 ferry. We were a little nervous as usually only 100 bicycles were allowed on and there was a lot of people in front of us. Thankfully this was the last ferry of the day and they took 150 bicycles and we were number 99 to 106. Phew!
It was very windy travelling back to the mainland and we were quite chilled but enjoy the nice beverage to recuperate from our long day of biking. Little did we know that when we arrived at Pier 13 we would still have a 30 minute bike ride at sunset to get back to our bicycle rental shop. Sheesh.
We had a mental image of the California would be very warm but the coast only gets to 20° at best and by this time it was closer to 10. Our shorts and T-shirts didn't exactly make us comfortable.
We got back to the shop and checked in our bicycles and called an Uber. Our friends got a Ford explore and we were lucky enough to get a nice Italian man with a brand-new Mercedes C class car. We made our way back to the hotel where our van was parked in about 15 minutes but all her friends were delayed almost another 40.
Once they arrive be headed back to our hotel at the airport which only took about 30 minutes with traffic being reasonable at 11 o'clock at night.
Another fantastic day on our California adventure!
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