Day 32 (Thursday, July 7, 2016)

July 7, 2016--Happy Birthday, Donna!

We made it through the night sleeping on the streets of San Francisco.  :) The vehicle parked in front of us left sometime in the wee hours of the morning but there were still tons of us parked there.

 

We got up at 5 AM so we could drive to Oakland and watch the sun rise over the Oakland Bay Bridge.  The bridge is really pretty, and long and white.  An earthquake in the late 1980s damaged the original road and they fixed it but with new orders to build a new one.  It was fascinating to watch workers dismantle the old road/bridge.  Some of them were really high up there, with their protective ropes and harnesses.  

We parked out a bit and then began our journey.  We couldn’t walk all the way to Treasure Island; it looks like that phase should be done sometime this summer.  But we still got a little over four miles in; it is hard to realize something is THAT long but you can see the beginning and end!  There were a few bicyclists, and a couple of walkers we met up with at the very beginning.  We aren’t sure how much they actually walked.  We never did see the sun rise as it was yet another gray, drizzly, foggy day.  It does make everything look really cool!  The fog just lays on everything.  It’s been colder here than when we were in Canada and Alaska!

From Oakland we went a different way to park at the Golden Gate Bridge.  We ALWAYS walk this bridge when we are here.  We hiked from the North side this time, our first as we usually park and walk from the San Francisco city side.  It was windy again today but not as busy this early, at least to start.  As you walk more and more people show up.  We don’t think many actually cross the entire bridge but start from one side or the other and walk ½ way, then turn and walk back.  Bicyclists do tend to go the whole way and back. 

It is about 2 miles total when you count walking from the truck and across and then down to the gift shop (I buy a post card each time we walk it and stamp it with the date while I am there!) and back again.  The fog was starting to clear up a little bit on the north side which made it really gorgeous with blue and green and blue/green waters on the left of our view merging with the grayness of the right. 

After our hike we opted to go to Pacifica and grab some lunch.  Pacifica has a great beach and we have stayed there several times via AirBNB.  There is a place there that makes really great crepes and we always eat breakfast there at least once when we visit.  I had a Chicken Pesto crepe (YUMMY!) and Andrew opted for an omelet this time.  We hopped over the hill and stopped with hopes of seeing whales at Gray Whale Cove, but no luck.  We have seen them here before but their spring migration is pretty well over so there are only random stragglers. 

We headed down to Half Moon again.  We wanted to take some time to relax on the beach one more time before we headed away from the coast.  The beach was busier than before and there was an older gentleman with a remote-controlled surfer.  I kid you not!  It was fun to watch.  We thought it was the young guy sitting ort of close to us, but it was the older man!  It turns out he used to surf in his “former life” and this was a way to keep on doing it.  He had three surgeries on his shoulders and just couldn’t surf himself anymore.  What fun!

We headed back into Burlingame to look into fixing our bike hitch.  The journey has taken somewhat of a toll as it is tilting.   We, well, it was really ME, so I was worried the hitch would eventually just snap from metal fatigue and our bikes would go careening down the road.  We couldn’t find any adaptors that would work to secure it again, so we hunted up the address of a Dick’s Sporting Goods that was on our way to Yosemite and headed out.  We found a “sturdier” hitch although it has the same problem:  we have a 2” receiving hitch but the bike hitch is only 1 ¼ so it has an adaptor.  This should take care of our trip home though and I can rest easier and not keep watching my side view for pieces of bicycles scattering the roads.

We are staying at a Holiday Inn Express so I could update the blog and finish just a few notes for work.  We used points again so that is a good thing and we are only a couple hours at most from Yosemite.  We are heading out really, really early as they have campgrounds that are “first come, first served” within the park.  That could be interesting as it is a Friday and many people may be wanting to hike as much as we do.  We are planning right now on spending two days and two nights here and then head towards Colorado.  Our time is winding down fast now!  I will miss this side of our country but it is time to head home.