San Francisco today! We woke up excited to ride across the bridge, see Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Mary Lynn, and see the sights in the city. It was still pretty chilly when we woke up, but once we got in the sunshine it warmed right up. We packed up and rode about a mile down the road to the picnic tables we saw in a little park yesterday. Now that the tablet was fixed, I was able to borrow Loic's memory card and copy his photos and copy my photos to his card- that will save us a lot of time not having to email them. Joe and I had a little oatmeal, but since I was working on the pictures and we were all so excited, I didn't have a lot of it. We retraced our path back to the bridge and then found the start of the bike path across it. The view of the bridge was beautiful with the fog. We took a couple pictures and then rode across the bridge! I stopped so many times to take pictures just because I was so excited. It worked out great that we had our little group so that we could get a nice picture of Loic and he could get one of us riding across. Not long after we had gotten on the other side, we said our goodbyes to Loic, with hopes that our paths would cross again. From there, we set out to find Aunt Mary Lynn and Uncle Ronnie at the hotel downtown. We were a little worried that we would get lost since the only map of the city was the little city insert on our road map, but somehow, we did just fine. We found Lombard St and took that for a little ways and then found ourselves climbing up Russian hill. The first couple sections were steep, and then there was the one section- it was one crazy hill. Joe had to try a couple times to get started up it because his gears were messing up, but once he made it he was able to ride 3/4 of the way up. I rode 10 or 15 pedal strokes up, before getting off to walk. It was just so steep- it was hard, but the worst part is that it felt like my front wheel was just going to come off the ground and I was going to fall backwards, which I knew couldn't happen, but I still didn't like that feeling. It was so hard to push that bike up the hill though, especially since my upper body strength is lacking- it was exhausting. After that, we had another section of the hill to climb, but it was much more manageable. Boy did we feel the burn in our legs. When we got to the top, we saw the famous section of Lombard St. I really wanted to ride down it right then, but since we weren't sure exactly where we had to go to get to the hotel and we just wanted to get there as soon as we could, we decided not to. We were worried that if we rode down it, we would have to climb right back up another hill. Somehow we found our way to the hotel without having to do any backtracking. On the way, we rode right through Chinatown, which was a pretty good size. The hotel was HUGE- 26 floors. We were so excited to see Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Mary Lynn, and then were even more excited when we saw the hotel. Neither of us have ever stayed in a Hilton Hotel before, so it was a real treat! As we were standing in line with our bikes to check in, Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Mary Lynn found us! We took the bikes right up to the room, since they didn't say we couldn't. Since food was on my mind more than anything, Aunt Mary Lynn took me up to the Executive Lounge (she is a Diamond Member, so she gets benefits!!!). Most of the food was put away, but we managed to get some fruit, a coke for each of us, and a bagel each (Mary Lynn made a special request for us). Joey and Uncle Ronnie went to our room first (yes- we got our own room even!) and as they were on their way up to the Executive Lounge to meet us, they ended up taking longer than expected. Joey was so excited about everything that he left the keys in the room and was locked out- too funny. After enjoying a little snack and catch up time with Aunt Mary Lynn and Uncle Ron, we went down to our room to shower and change real quick so we could all go sight seeing. The room was just incredible- what a view. We were right in the middle of downtown near the financial district and Chinatown. Being that our room was on the 23rd floor, we had a birds eye view of the city below. It was just awesome. Once we were all ready, the four of us set out on an adventure to explore all the sights. We walked around Chinatown for a little bit, headed over to Lombard St. (saw it from the bottom where the good view is instead of the top like we were at earlier), and then walked down to the Fisherman's Warf. There was a sougherdough factory that made bread in all sorts of shapes- including teddy bears and alligators. Lots of little shops and restaurants surrounded us. Since we were all hungry, we started looking for a place to eat-particularly seafood. We ended up finding a place called Alioto's, which is one of the oldest restaurants in the city. The hostess showed us our table and we were blown away by the view; the harbor in the foreground and the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. None of us expected a view like that, but it was perfect! After our wonderful lunch (I had shrimp-SO good!), we headed over to Ghirardelli Square (for dessert =D ). Between the 4 of us, we must have gotten 12-15 free samples. The chocolates were "pumpkin spice caramel" for fall, and they (like all other Ghiradelli chocolate) were amazing! Another place we stopped before heading back to the hotel was the Coit Tower. We didn't go to the top, but had fun walking around inside since there were murals painted on all the walls. Back at the hotel, we enjoyed relaxing in the Executive Lounge for quite a while. There were some great appetizers/snacks; from fruit and cookies to my favorite things- chicken cordon bleu balls. It was so pretty to watch the view of the city go from day to night. After a while, we decided to take a little walk around Chinatown to see it all lit up at night. We stopped in a couple stores and enjoyed some fresh air before retiring for the evening. What a fantastic day! We only rode 13.80 miles today.
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