San Francisco Adventure Part Two!

If you have been following my blog for a while, you may recall that this past September I went on a really long walk around San Francisco. 14 miles. You may want to start by checking out my recap of the experience here.

Up to date? Great! Now read on to hear about our next 15 miles...

My honey and I got up nice and early to meet our friends at our starting location.

Waiting for a BART train.

Cable car!

We opted to take the cable car, where we sat by a charming Australian couple who I would guess are in their 60s. I was chatting with the wife and she asked where we were visiting from. I told her that we live near the city. She lowered her voice and whispered, "why are you on a cable car?!?" My first thought was, "why not?" but I explained that, although more expensive ($6/each) than taking the bus ($2/each), it was the most direct and quickest route to where we were meeting our friends.

We hopped off at the end near Ghirardelli Square and Fisherman's Wharf and walked maybe half a mile to the Marina.

We met up with our friends at the Safeway and quickly got on our way. After all, we had 15 miles to go! Oh, and one of the first stops was for caffeine and donuts. We weren't messing around.

Here is a link to our (approximate) route for the day -- Google Maps.

Before caffeine and donuts we visited the Wave Organ. Although we weren't there at an optimal listening time, it was still really neat.

Aquatic Acoustics.

Listening.

After a bit of listening, we ventured back to pick up donuts, granola and yogurt and caffeine at Dynamo Donut + Coffee. I zeroed in on the maple donut with bacon on it (obviously) but limited myself to a bite (or two) and stuck mostly to the granola and yogurt. And an espresso. My honey didn't mind eating the remainder of the donut.

Let's take a look at the donut.

Nom Nom Nom.

YUM.

Then we got back on our way!

I thought this sign was awfully specific:

South of the sign is fine.

From there, we made our way to one of my favorite San Francisco landmarks, the Golden Gate Bridge. We saw it from many different angles that day, but one of the best views was from Fort Point. Fort Point is a National Historic site and protected the San Francisco harbor from attack during the Civil War. Yay, history! None of the planned activities at the fort fit with our schedule (we had just missed the cannon demonstration. damn.) so we did a little self-guided tour, mostly to climb to the top for the fantastic photo opportunities.

San Francisco, open your Golden Gate.

So yes, that view above was my favorite. But this view, once we had walked the trail that takes you under the bridge and further along the coast, wasn't too shabby either.

It is moments like these when I feel so grateful to live in such a beautiful place. The weather was also INCREDIBLE. Like, short-sleeves-and-still-a-little-warm-in-January weather. We are spoiled.

The weather was great until we hit Land's End, that is.

We found Lands End!

We stood at the edge, looking at the water, and literally watched the fog roll in and take over.

Fog moves fast, FYI.

Up next was a much needed lunch stop at the Seal Rock Inn.

Lunch.

With out bellies filled, we got right back on the road. Actually, the Great Highway. This was the last 1.5-2 hours of our journey and it was cold and foggy. Once we reached the Zoo, we found our way to a bus stop to take us to BART and our (thankfully seated) trip back home.

We found winter on the Great Highway.

I asked our friends if we could walk from the Zoo to Bayview/Hunters Point. We're not sure if it is physically possible, at least along the outer edge of the city, but if it is, you know we'll find a way. We also decided about halfway through our 15 miles that we should work on making our way through the middle of the city next. Always planning...

Thanks to our adventure (and some intentionally stepping later), I got my first 35,000 step badge on FitBit! Woot.

35,000 steps!