After Alcatraz

Sandi and I stayed for the next few days as tourists. We cooked breakfast for Teddy and Justin before sending them on their way, and falling back into bed for a long nap. Our next challenge was figuring out the busses since Teddy had taken his car! We began the first of many rides on Bus 30 to China Town for a walking tour. The guide included the fortune cookie factory where we snuck as many “mistakes” as we dared. She gave us recipes for the odd vegetables sold at street-side markets. And she walked us through a temple rife with burning incense, candles and bowls of fruit. We opted for lunch on our own and followed the locals to a Chinese café complete with a whole slaughtered pig hanging in the kitchen.

We strolled through the financial district then UP to Coit Tower. So much for an easy day off after a hard race! When the street ended because the hill steepened, stairs led us up even further. Eventually we found the base of the tower and took the elevator to the top. Unfortunately a stream of clouds flowing in from the ocean over the bay covered Alcatraz Island. However, we could see all the terrain in the city we’d already covered as well as what was in the plan for the next couple days: hiking the Marin Headlands, Ghirardelli Square, a WWII-era submarine and North Beach, the Italian district of the city.

Day Two of tourism was a victorious homework day: we finally finished all of the work for our Hermeneutics class, which meant Sandi was out of school for the summer! (I am still working on Romans.) We took his victory hike on the trails above Mill City in the Marin Headlands before meeting Carrie for dinner at Spinnaker. Since she was sans Mark, we of course took the opportunity to find out the real story  between marveling at keeling sailboats, seal heads periscoping up from the waves and watching the sun cast its last evening rays on the slopes of San Francisco.

Our last day found us testing out a tandem bike against the advice of locals. We rode around town enough to realize this would be a challenge, then loaded the bike on a ferry to Angel Island. Once there, we settled into a routine: peddle for a few minutes, stop to explore ruins, take a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge; peddle, explore, take a picture, etc. I’m not sure if we felt cheated or relieved when we could no longer see the bridge.

We ferried back to the mainland and wiled away the afternoon peddling around the city. Wandering from chocolate shop to the café and back in Ghirardelli Square, we scored sample caramel chocolates at each place, each time. Finally, we bought Mom and Dad a bagful of chocolates and peddled on to the cable car turn-around, where the workers manually turn each car around for its return journey up the cables. Sadly returning the bike, we explored the WWII-era submarine before dinner at a very Italian family-owned establishment in North Beach.

Carrie dropped us at the airport in the morning for the reclamation of our house, which we found occupied by the Bryans, who’d even stationed two of their clan of six in the trailer. We only won back one of our rooms, however, since they were invited guests in the process of moving. Thus ended the Douglass adventures for the month of June. We are breathing a sigh of rest from the crazy four months we’ve lived in SC even while we gear up for a crazy July and August, full of races and travels.