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California Road Trip

In the summer of 2018 I took my daughter on a 9-day road trip through California. Here is our little story.

Day 3

I slept all through the night without waking up, despite being next to the freeway. Katie was again still asleep, so carefully and quietly I started getting ready for another day in San Francisco. She woke up around 8:30 am. We took an Uber to Sausalito to have some breakfast near the water. I ordered a stack of Frooty-tooty pancakes with bacon and shared it with Katie. She had a water and I had a double latte. It was pretty good. Now we were ready to go to a bike rental near the Golden Gate Bridge so we could cycle across it.

Our second Uber arrived. He started driving and I noticed he took the on-ramp to 101 North. I could see his phone with directions on the map and it said to go clockwise around the Bay to go to San Francisco. It said it was over 100 miles and we would arrive at around 2 pm. So I said, "Uh, excuse me, sir, we are going to San Francisco, which is the other way". "Oh yes", he replied, "GPS error". So he exited and drove south.

We arrived at the Sports Basement at the Presidio. We found our way to the Rental Department and, after I filled out an information form, I took a bike with a tandem attachment for Katie. I considered getting a bike for her, but I remembered that the bridge can be busy with pedestrians and bicyclists, especially since only the east side was open.

We hit the road. The ride was smooth and flat going towards the bridge. "I think we need to turn left here, daddy", Katie said at one point. "No, this way also leads to the bridge", I said. We ended up at Fort Point. Dead end. "I told you so daddy". Here we have a 9-year old who knows the way better than I do in a place she's never been, I thought. However, the universe led us here. In the distance we saw a whale popping up out of the water, and, a few minutes later, a yellow VW bus pulled up and parked in a spot so I could take a picture of it with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. Perfect. "Now we can go", I told her.

We rode back and took a right turn which led up a steep hill that was unavoidable no matter which route you took. In first gear, we slowly gained altitude. The bridge was getting closer. After one last steep road we entered the bridge. Fortunately it was not that busy. Yet. At about a quarter of the way across we stopped. We saw two dolphins in the Bay. I took some pics of the San Francisco skyline and we continued our ride. Halfway across we stopped again. This is where the giant cables are at their lowest. We rode on until we reached the other side. "We did it! High five!" For a short time we looked at the bridge from the vista point and drank some water. "Now we're going back and you can say you've crossed the bridge by bike twice ", I told her.

The way back was challenging as the bridge was getting crowded with pedestrians and cyclists. Some of them were in locations where they were not supposed to be. An older guy almost fell and bumped into the railing. He was quite startled. I felt bad for him as he and his wife had decided, just like us, to rent bikes to cross the bridge and have a fun time, but then this little incident happened. I hope the rest of the way was more fortunate for them.

Back on the SF side, we had a look at an exhibit which consisted of a steel pillar that was compressed to buckle at the University of California, Berkeley. This was done a few years ago to get more insight into the effects of earthquakes that were unknown at the time when the bridge was built. With this knowledge, parts of the bridge had been retrofitted to better withstand earthquakes. 

The ride back was mostly downhill. While riding towards the rental place I must have taken another wrong turn (Katie didn't notice either) because we ended up at the Palace of Fine Arts, the only building left from the World Exhibition from 1915. I took some pictures.Katie suddenly asked, "Are those swans?" There, for sure, were two swans in the pond. She said she had never seen swans before and asked if we could go around the pond to get a closer look at them. Of course. As we walked to the other side she asked, "Is that a willow tree?" It indeed was. Turns out she had never seen one of those either. We got pretty close to the swans and when they left I snapped some shots of them with the Palace in the background.

We were on our way back to the rental place when Katie asked if we would have arrived by now if the Uber driver from this morning would have driven us around the Bay. "No, we wouldn't have", I told her. After we returned the bikes we had lunch at Pier 23 on the Embarcadero and I helped Katie find hidden words on her kids menu.

Next stop: the Exploratorium at Pier 15 on the Embarcadero. I told her that this is a science museum where you can touch stuff. "I don't know ", Katie said. "I'm sure it will be fun", I said. The other option was to climb Telegraph Hill, so we bought two tickets to the Exploratorium. It was a lot of fun. We spent almost 2.5 hours there, which was not enough time with so many exhibits to play with. Some of Katie's favorites were making sine waves with sand, answering questions by just using your eyes, and making a tornado. One of mine was experiencing gyroscopic forces with a quickly turning bicycle wheel. We both spent time keeping balls suspended with blowing air. Unfortunately we were told to leave because the museum was closing, which was too early, in our opinion. Katie asked again if we would have arrived by now at the bike rental if we would have ridden in this morning's Uber. "Yes, we would have, but we wouldn't have returned yet from our bike ride".

We took a ferry back to Sausalito where we had a simple dinner (soup and salad for me and spaghetti for Katie). We had a nice view and watched the fog come over the hills into the bay with the setting sun shining on it. After that we headed back to the hotel where we Facetimed Marie to tell her about our experiences that day.