August 31, 2017
Day 59 Mill Bay Travel Lodge to Oakland (via San Francisco!): We Reach a Major Milestone
We woke early and had a nice little breakfast that came with our room – bagels, coffee and some muffins which we stashed away for a snack later on. Breakfast done, we quickly packed up and were on the road towards the bridge.
The ride was very pleasant, again much of it off of major roads and on trails. We came to a spot where we had to climb up a big hill and were tempted to go down and along the traffic, but were dissuaded by a passing cyclist who said it really wasn’t that big a climb (it was) and was much nicer than being in traffic (he was right).
Once through Mill Valley, we entered the town of Sausalito, a lovely little spot right on the water. It would have been nice to linger, but the bridge was just around the bend and we were anxious to get there for our first glimpse.
Of course, coming to the bridge from Sausalito meant going up up up! It was a good climb but we were now fuelled with the excitement of getting to our destination. The Golden Gate was the symbolic end of this part of our journey and we were pretty pumped to get there – no hills were going to get in our way this morning!
We finally rounded a bend and got our first look. Neither of us had ever been to San Francisco, so it was pretty special to see it there so close. We arrived at the viewing area on this side of the bridge and stopped to take some pictures. We both had tears in our eyes as we realized we had done it! For us, this was such a big moment, an achievement we had dreamed of for quite some time and wow, it was everything we wanted it to be. You may be asking if we were a little disappointed at not continuing, but no, we had come to realize that this was the right thing for us to do. We are on this journey for ourselves and it is a journey that we have loved every minute of – all the good things, all the nasty hills, all the challenges and all the wonderful people. It has been a very special time for us and we regret absolutely nothing. You only get one first and this was our first big tour – what an absolutely amazing way to finish, by crossing the Golden Gate bridge – it really doesn’t get any better than that!
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Once we finished with pictures, we took our own sweet time crossing the bridge. We were the very worst of tourists, stopping all the time to take more pictures than we will ever need, but hey, it was our moment!
At the far end, just as we were about to head off, we spotted two Canadian cycling jerseys! We called out to the two ladies wearing them and pulled over to chat. It turns out they are sisters, both born in Canada. One now lives in Sacramento and the other from Toronto I believe. They get together to visit, much the way my sister, Barb and I do and they were out for a ride over the bridge today. It was a nice way to end our Golden Gate adventure, meeting two fellow Canadians!
Once off the bridge, we moved down to the lovely bikeway and meandered along the waterfront, stopping along the way at one of their Warming Huts for a little lunch before riding through areas like the Presideo, the extremely touristy Fisherman’s Warf and Pier 39 before finally arriving at the BART station for our trip over to Oakland and our Warmshowers.
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Our host for the next few days, Tiff, had made other plans for this evening as we were originally supposed to arrive a day earlier and couldn’t change them. We were not concerned as we had told her we wanted to go to the Seahawks game, so wouldn’t be around anyways. We made it to Tiff’s place with no problem, met one of her roommates who kindly showed us where we would be staying, and then showered and changed to head back out to use the BART once again to get to our game. It might seem a strange way to end a tour, but those who know us well, know that this was the perfect ending for us! We got to the game, had a beer and a hot dog, and enjoyed the first 3 quarters before heading back so as not to be too late in arriving back.
Shortly after we got there, Tiff came home and we were able to have a great visit with her about touring and bikes in general before we all headed off to bed. The plan is to spend a few days here in Oakland relaxing, getting caught up on laundry and such before heading into San Francisco for 3 days of total tourism and then its off to Austin! A long but very satisfying day done, we plopped into bed for a much needed rest.
Today's ride: 24 km (15 miles)
Total: 2,094 km (1,300 miles)
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