It was nice to see so much greenery living in a drought state.
We left Muir Woods and headed south to Monterey. We booked a hotel within walking distance of the aquarium. Our hotel crossed over the main drag.
The aquarium was impressive and we all really enjoyed it.
We had a relaxing dinner at our hotel and called it a night.
It\’s a nice ride on the way to the bridge along the water. If you look closely you can see the bridge pillars sticking out of the water. It was pretty foggy.
All is good!
As we were going up this hill I told Quinn that this was our biggest hill, or so I thought. A man passing the other way said that I shouldn\’t tell him that because the real hill is approaching the bridge. Oh great!
Our last stop before we ride to the bridge.
Making a pitstop getting up the big hill. Quinn is still learning how to use his gears but did really great getting up this hill. And I was thanking all my early morning spin classes.
Off we go. On weekends the west bound sidewalk is for bikes only. The east bound is for walkers.
We made it! But Quinn wasn\’t so happy. He didn\’t love the strong winds, the cold, or the height. But he did it!
Now we got to coast down this path and go under the bridge on our way to Sausalito.
Once in Sausalito we parked our bikes at the ferry and headed out for lunch. We had a couple of minutes to poke around before the restaurant opened.
Then it was time to get on the 1:10 pm ferry back to SF. Although the trip was alot of fun, it was more harrowing than I expected. The big hills in the beginning, the winds on the bridge were really strong, there were lots of serious bikers that were going really fast over the bridge, slippery conditions, and then finally the riding into Sausalito was on the road with all the traffic. It made this mama very nervous. But we did it!
Actually one of the hardest parts might have been navigating our bikes the 2 blocks from the ferry terminal back to the bike shop. It was so crowded and hard to navigate the three of us with our bikes. But then back to the hotel for some down time.
Then it was out to the beach to meet Twink & Jim for dinner. It was a great evening eating seafood and catching up with them. A nice relaxing time.
We had tickets for the 9 am boat to Alcatraz. Tickets were sold out until August 8 so glad we thought to purchase them ahead of time.
A view towards Alcatraz on the right and the Golden Gate Bridge to the left.
SF and the Bay Bridge.
It was a bit chilly on the boat ride over. Don is plotting out a multi-stage geocache.
We have arrived.
Many of the sea birds nest on the island so there were quite a few fuzzy babies.
Heading in to the prison.
There is a 45 minute audio tour that was pretty interesting.
The prisoners.
Then it was on to Ghirardelli Square. The lines were so long that we had to get our chocolate elsewhere.
We had planned to take the cable car up to Lombard Street but the queue was so long we decided to hoof it. We easily got in 20,000 steps on this day.
The crookedest (and most touristy) street in America.
We finally got on a cable car and made our way back to the hotel.
After some down time we hopped on the cable car to make our way to Chinatown. Quinn thought it was pretty great standing up and hanging on as we made our way.
Looking for the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Company in a back alley.
We found it! We all got a flat sample 🙂
And then it was on to dinner. We chose wisely.
The White House 