Touring San Francisco, CA Afternoon Session

How 'ya 'doin?

Josh and Gabrielle here, fixing to tell ya about our second half of our day in SF.  After we left Ghirardelli we embarked for the Golden Gate Bridge. After a series of near vertical climbs and descents, we made it to the bike part of the Golden Gate. Now, the day was clear, but the bridge was encased in fog, really thick fog.  Now mind you, it's about 1:30 in the afternoon and there's still fog around this bridge! We biked across the bridge, stopping at each large support to gawk at the tremendous height above the water. At the end of the bridge we turned around, went back over the bridge, went to the gift shop. After a stop by the gift shop we departed for Chinatown and some late lunch. On our way to Chinatown we stopped by and biked down Lombard Street, a very steep, windy street.  Some of us had trouble getting down the hill, but we finally made it without any scrapes! We got to Chinatown and it was terribly busy, people all over the place! School had just gotten out, so there were kids too.  Now, 7 of us trying to maneuver through the people was no easy matter. We finally found a place to eat, had a nice early dinner/late lunch and headed down Grant Street, the main tourist drag of Chinatown.  Now by this time it was about 5:00 in the afternoon.  We headed back down towards the wharf. We went back to Ghiradelli square to get some chocolate (we had not bought any earlier, on account of not wanting to lug it around SF.) We got to Ghiradelli, bought our chocolate and headed back to the piers. As we were headed back to the pier we had to cross the cable car tracks, and we had a bit of an adventure there. First, well, I'l let Annie tell you what happened:

Annie here, we were going to cross the cable car tracks to get back to the pier, and Gabrielle was behind me on her bike. Whoosh, my front wheel got caught in the tracks, Gabrielle stopped and her bike fell on top of me! My poor water bottle took 90 percent of the beating! I have a big bruise on my knee and an awful sore on my wrist.

After our little adventure we headed back and were biking along the piers. The sidewalks are really wide, about twice the width of a normal sidewalk. These sidewalks were so crowded that a few times we had to almost stop. Anyway, as we were riding, a lady waked by and said "Why do they have to ride bikes on the sidewalk?" Her friend who was walking with her said "look at the bike lanes." Now these bike lanes are in the shoulder of the road and not very wide.  Serious road bikers ride on the lanes are are very rude, they come up very fast and quiet, so you almost run into them. Anyway, these bike lanes aren't really used by tourists. I guess this lady didn't know this. Some guy near the lady said "Dum Kauf" and threw up his hands. Supposedly this statement means dummy in German. We made it to the ferry without any problem, got seats inside and headed back to the RV and bed.

The Golden Gate Bridge

The San Francisco Bay

Riding down Lombard street

Eating dinner Chintown

On the ferry on the way back!