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BIKING THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE
DAY 10: San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito
After a good breakfast at the hostel we headed out in the morning heat to find our bikes for the day as we'd decided to 'ride the bridge'. After a short route briefing from the bike rental man (not sure either of us were listening) we were on our way.
We decided to take a route that would carry us over the bridge and down into a small town called Sausalito, across the bay from San Francisco. San Fran is famed for its steep hills and it showed no mercy on our ride. There were quite a few steep climbs en route to the bridge, but it was well worth it when we were riding across. It is just spectacular, I'm so glad we got to do it.
It's quite windy as you can imagine, being so high up. We stopped a few times whilst crossing and caught a glimpse of something in the water. A shark? A dolphin? A piece of floating seaweed? It was actually a sea lion, but nice to see all the same. Sharks and dolphins are not uncommon in the Bay, so from that moment on I was convinced every ripple was a shark or a dolphin.
As we exited the bridge we commenced our decent down into Sausalito, wind running through Jen's hair and over my head. I remember thinking 'this is what it's all about' as we speedily free-wheeled down the steep hill. That feeling was short lived as I realised we'd have to come back up it!
Sausalito is a lovely little place. We decided to have a drink by the water in one of the many bars as it was such gorgeous weather, opting for a shandy on account of our drink-riding hazard. Asking for a shandy to a non-English speaking waiter in the US is not easy. So we sat down, in the sun with our bottle of Corona and can of lemonade and made our own, and damn fine they were too. Made me want a few more real beers though.
After a brief look at the shops and an energy boosting ice cream, Jen and I decided to face the beast and start our return journey up that steep hill.
At this point we both realised the problem that anyone faces having not ridden a bike for a while - a sore arse. It was like someone had booted me from behind and left their shoe there. This made the steep climb even harder, but both Jen and I managed it all the way up without stopping (apart from once to take a layer of clothes off).
Back over the bridge for another look at the spectacular views of San Fran and out to the Pacific and we headed back to hand the bikes over. All in all we were out for about five hours, and we think somewhere between six and 10 miles were at least covered. A good day's exercise, some great sunshine and an all-round unbelievable experience.
On our way back to the hostel we stopped by the infamous Pier 39 to see the sea lions. This is where they live permanently, all fighting for their own bit of space on the floating platforms. Watching these blubbery beasts was accompanied by our first corn dog - a sort of fried sweet breaded substance wrapped around a fat frankfurter on a stick. Sounds weird, and it is, but it kind of works.
After freshening up, we were treated by the hostel to a free 'dinner'. Now, you can imagine what we were expecting - a pot of pasta and a pot of sauce...get stuck in. However, we were treated to the most amazing burrito buffet ever. It was tremendous. Well done again Green Tortoise!
We decided that the evening should be lightly based around alcohol, so we decided (or more to the point, Jen decided) to start at an American drinking institution - Hooters. 'Interesting' experience I think, but maybe not as expected. We'll leave it at that.
After a pint in Hooters, we headed to Lou's blues bar over the way as it sounded like there was a good bit of live music coming from there earlier. Now I never really thought I liked Blues, but these guys were awesome! Not only were they unbelievably good, but we were treated to a special guest and a song by a guy (who's name I don't know) from the band (who's name I don't know) who sang the song (the name of which I don't know) that goes 'Take out the papers and the trash...', '...yackety yack, don't talk back.' which was nice.
Probably our best day yet all in all I think, and a tough one to beat.
Quote of the day:
(overheard whilst an American was chatting to some fellow Americans on the front, we presume talking about is brown Labrador he was playing with);
'...we had the sperm flown in from Michigan.'
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