Sunny San Francisco

Torill and I arrived in the Bay Area on Wednesday, exactly one month
after leaving Vancouver. We spent the first two nights in the Marin
Headlands National Park area camping on a hillside campground with
nearby views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the city. It was a pretty
spectacular spot and it was, surprisingly, free!

From there we moved into the city on Friday and have spent the last
two nights in a pretty sketch hostel currently undergoing renovations;
pain in the ass! Today we are moving to another hostel (hopefully
less downtown eastside-esque) for a few more nights of city life.

The ride through Northern California has been alternately spectacular
and frustrating. As usual, the bad was brought on by periods of poor
weather and we had our fair share of rough patches over the last
couple weeks. We were drenched by record rains in the Redwoods
National Park and then treated to further rains and smothering fog
much of the rest of the way into San Fran. However, the riding over
this stretch was amazing as the road often snaked right alongside the
wild Pacific Coast. Vehicle traffic has been light and the little
traffic we encountered was very courteous towards cyclists.

We've traveled over 1,200 miles (just shy of 2,000 kilometers) with
only three days off hunkered down through rains approaching biblical
proportions. We'll spend a few more days relaxing and checking out
San Francisco before hitting the road again. We had intended to
arrive in San Francisco relatively quickly and then slow down a little
bit in order to escape the northern latitudes before winter's
approach. Mission one accomplished; the temperatures have increased
significantly over the past two weeks of southern travel and it is now
quite pleasant day and night.

Here are some photos; many more to follow.