Day 13: Petaluma to San Francisco

Today’s Highlights:

Every day of this adventure we have experienced new sites, and today we transported ourselves into an entirely different world.  After spending twelve days along nearly uninhabited beaches, silent mystical forest, farms that stretch to the horizon, and tiny towns with no more than a general store, a restaurant and a gift shop, we reached San Francisco.  What a change!  In the time it took us to crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, I think more cars and trucks passed by us than in the previous two weeks combined.  This is a very busy place!

The morning started with a ride down the main drag in Petaluma, which looked like a very nice town to explore.  However, once again we were simply on the move.  We got off the main route and back into farmland.  There were a couple big hill climbs in the morning along with smaller rolling terrain.  We enjoyed more views of farms with golden fields dotted with oak trees and small herds of cattle and occasionally a horse or two.  The clouds hung low, rolling over the tops of the hills.  After 20 miles or so, the clouds began to lift and eventually we had nice blue skies again.

The last half of today’s route took us through suburban streets in Mill Valley with lots of stop and go.  A bike path led us into Sausalito where we stopped at Mike’s Bikeshop to pick up a few essentials.  Then we stopped at the Renovo Bike showroom, which unfortunately was closed.  We left our nose prints on the window after gazing at their fine handcrafted wooden bikes.  On we went through the nice town of Sausalito.  Many of our riders stopped there for lunch.  Chris and I pressed on, but did stop to take pictures.

Finally, we reach the Golden Gate Bridge.  It is an amazing site, as is the San Francisco skyline on the other side of the bay.  While the scenery and engineering marvel were interesting, the noise and crowd were not exactly my favorite.  Once off the bridge, it was an easy travel into the city.  We reached the hotel in late afternoon.

This evening we had dinner at Lori’s Cafe, a 1950’s style dinner.  Then we visited the Ghirardelli chocolate shop, bought some good stuff to fuel our bodies for the next ride, and had a delicious dessert.

Tomorrow is a “rest” day.  I’m sure we will be out exploring many of the sites.

Pictures Of The Day:

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Statistics:
Zoom and pan the map to explore the route. Click the name or ‘View Detail’ to view more information at Garmin Connect.

Chris: