Mountain View to the Golden Gate (aka "A Public Transit Adventure")

We recently took a trip up to San Francisco with our bicycles with the intention of riding along the waterfront and then taking a ferry to Sausalito. The trip ended up being so much more than that by the time we returned home.

The day began by riding out our front door to the train station which is conveniently located just half a mile away. Using alternate means of commuting to work is very popular in this area. Bicyclists are everywhere on the roads and apparently on the trains as well. There is at least one bicycle car on every Cal Train and 7 trains per day that now have a second bicycle car. Once you secure your bicycle you can head above to a small selection of seats or to another car up front.

Once we arrived in the City our first stop was AT&T Park, home of the SF Giants. It is very hard keeping up with the name of this place, first it was PacBell Park, then SBC Park. How about just picking a name and sticking to it instead of all this corporate sponsorship?

When we were riding around the ballpark we noticed these interesting looking window shades. Turns out they are solar panels.

The solar panels provide energy to the ballpark as well as to other areas of San Francisco.

We rode our bicycles northwest along the bay and passed by the Bay Bridge which connects San Francisco with the East Bay at Oakland. It recently underwent a major construction project. It was closed from Thursday evening until Tuesday morning of Labor Day Weekend while crews worked around the clock to link the existing bridge with a new section built on the East side. Eventually the entire bridge will be rebuilt.

As we rode along the waterfront area also known as the Embarcadero, we passed this fiberglass bow and arrow known as "Cupid's Span". It stands over 2 stories tall and is located in Rincon Park across the street from the Gap headquarters. This sculpture was created by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen who also created this clothespin in my other favorite city.

(For all you skaters: "the Embarcadero is important in skateboard history. This area is in the majority of the 90's top skateboard videos. Embarcadero hence became featured in one the Playstation's top selling games, Tony Hawk Pro skater.").

Once at Pier 41 we boarded a ferry to Sausalito with the bikes. On the way we passed by Alcatraz...

We found this "artcar" on Napa Street in Sausalito permanently parked by one of the many boat slips. I would love to know how long it has been sitting there.

I found this site which gives credit to Heather Wilcoxon, a Sausalito resident and popular artist.

We rode along the waterfront in Sausalito for about an hour, found some lunch at a small grocery deli and then headed back on the ferry to San Francisco.

We continued biking north along the Bay and eventually made it to Fort Point where the Golden Gate Bridge connects with San Francisco.

What a beautiful view it was. The Fort is still there and you can take a short tour through it.

Once we were done taking in the view at the bridge, we turned around and started the trek back south towards Fisherman's Wharf. On the way we passed by the Palace of Fine Arts. This building houses a Fine Arts Theater and the Exploratorium, a museum of science, art and human perception.

We stopped at Fisherman's Wharf to get a quick bite and found this guy to watch our bikes for us.

Michael had the famous Clam Chowder in a sourdough bread bowl while I had a gulf shrimp cocktail.

We finally made it back to the San Francisco train station and waited for the 4:56 back to Mountain View. We were surprised to see the old-fashioned signs still used, no digital flatscreens here. Those signs showing the train departure times have to be changed manually for each train by the station staff.

According to Google maps, it is approximately 43 miles from our front door to the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. So we think we travelled about 100 miles. Not bad!