Day 1: San Francisco

Three years ago I travelled around the United States on JetBlue and learned something about where I live. The Bay Area has a lot of diversity and things to do. You can experience quite a bit by just exploring the cities near where you live. Many people have the tendency to forget this in the routine daily lives we have.

Since I have a Caltrain monthly pass, I’m going to see what I can see that is either a walk or a bike-ride away from Caltrain. Hoping for non-rainy weather, but it’s the Bay Area.

Today it was a trip up to San Francisco. I had no idea of what I was going to do. But I had my bike and my camera. I could get around wherever I wanted, and I just needed to be on the last train south at 9:15.

I ended up biking up the Embarcadero and stopping at Pier 27/29 where the America’s Cup Park is located. After a quick bag inspection, I walked around the rather large area.

The end of the pier offered a great view of part of the new Eastern Span of the Bay Bridge, which is awfully quiet this weekend as they switch over to the new span. As I rode under the bridge I had to stop and remind myself that I wasn’t hearing the cars on the bridge, but instead behind me on the Embarcadero.

Of course there are other attractions that are visible from the pier: Alcatraz, Coit Tower, and the Transamerica Building.

Seeking shade, there was an area near the food stations that had several tables. What was more fascinating was that they had a handful of these beds. Not quite sure what they are supposed to be used for, but hey, it was pretty comfortable.

As I was leaving, they had blocked off the end of the pier for some road racing. That definitely looked like fun, but also challenging as they had several task to do at once and took corners a bit too fast and sharp.

A bike ride over to Hyde Street started a beautiful but very windy walk down the Hyde Street Pier, part of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.

I boarded the Balclutha, a iron and steal sailing vessel that carried coal and cargo from Europe and returned California Grain for 13 years. For 27 years, as the Star of Alaska, she carried men and supplies to the Alaska canneries and returned with packed salmon.

On the way back to the Caltrain station, the blue sky had turned into an artist’s masterpiece, almost like a paint by numbers painting. The Bay Bridge reflected the sun off its silver (aka grey without the sun) surface against the blue and white wispy clouds.

Racing the sun south on the same train I had traveled north on, we were treated to the sky clearing up from the foggy San Francisco and into a beautiful sunset as we left San Mateo.