Monday, June 02, 2008 - Rest Day in Berkeley, CA

Shane took us in to San Francisco today, stopping at the high school where she teaches and then touring us around the city a bit. The high school kids were just starting their final exams so there was a lot of hubbub when we arrived but the kids soon disappeared into classrooms for the tests. Pat & I wandered around the neighborhood - Pacific Heights - while Shane took care of some things, then she drove us down to the Golden Gate Bridge, to see where our route will start off on Wednesday, then to Baker Beach, Ocean Beach, and around the Golden Gate Park, a long and lovely city park along the ocean and bay. Both Baker and Ocean Beach were along the ocean, but Baker Beach was in a little cove and the water and wind were a lot calmer there; Ocean Beach was colder and windier with much choppier waves. One could see the fog bank that sat out over the water and moved in during the evening and out again in the morning. The Cliff House, a famous restaurant, was perched on a cliff right on Ocean Beach. We also saw some white rocks a little bit off shore whose whiteness, Shane explained, was due to all the bird guano deposited on them. The Golden Gate Park had lots of trees and beautiful plants, some wetland areas, a large botanical gardens, a Japanese garden, and much, much more. Then Shane took us around to some other famous neighborhoods - Haight-Ashbury, the Castro district (where her sister, Becca, lived for a while), and finally to California and Van Ness where the cable cars originate. She dropped us off there and we took a ride up Nob Hill, through Chinatown and back down to the Ferry Building where we had been the day before. From there, we took BART, the subway system, back to Shane's house. After that, we tried to get some work done - laundry, planning next week's route, updating the web site - until Shane came home and we went out to dinner with Becca, who's still hard at work getting her new apartment ready to move into.

Tomorrow's our last rest day; this glorious week is quickly coming to an end and, as usual, we still have a lot to do. May not be a great day for pictures, but the day after that should be - we'll be heading out over the Golden Gate Bridge. I hope we'll be able to take pictures from up there. It all depends - if there's a lot of bike traffic, we may not be able to stop or go slowly enough to snap many pictures. We'll see what we can do.

The school where Shane teaches - not your typical high school building

The school entrance

Kids hanging out in the hall, about to go off to their exams

A wall of one-page summaries describing the wide variety of projects the seniors had accomplished

One senior had a 3-week stint in a 5-star restaurant, which led to a job offer!

This project looked like a lot of fun

This one was more service-oriented

This project entailed working with Becca on her graduate research project

The Pacific Heights neighborhood - fancy houses...

and very steep streets

I mean, REALLY steep

This street has an ocean view

An entrance down an elaborate walkway

More fancy houses

These chimneys turned with the wind, presumably to avoid downdrafts

The Golden Gate Bridge, bay to the right, ocean to the left

Pat and Shane on Baker Beach (Golden Gate just to the right)

One edge of the cove around Baker Beach, with houses clustered near the edge

Ocean Beach, with the fog bank on the horizon

The Cliff House restaurant, and one of the guano-covered rocks

The Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate City Park

The De Young Art Museum, an interesting mesh-covered copper building

Entrance to the Japanese Garden in the park

A corner in the Haight-Ashbury district

Another interesting bulding at Haight & Masonic

Houses in the area

A large Gay-pride flag on Castro

Another colorful building

A cupola on the Mission Dolores School in the Castro district

Dolores Park (aka Dolores Beach because of all the sunbathers on a sunny day)

San Francisco's City Hall

Cable cars going up and down Nob Hill

Our cable car arrives at the station

A cable car driver waits at the controls

A Chinese couple about to get on the cable car near Chinatown

A side street in Chinatown

The incredibly steep hill we're about to go down (very slowly)

At the end of the line, a plaque honoring a famous San Franciscan - Robert Frost

Our trolley car heads back to tackle the hill again

On the BART train, the other side of the loading docks we saw from the ferry yesterday

One of many bikes riding the trains