San Francisco

Ah, the rain has finally stopped.  While the sun isn't completely shining, at least it's dry and the puddles are diminishing. 

We drove into San Francisco today.  What a great city!  We took an open-air, double-decker bus tour and saw all the sights:  Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf, Little Italy.  The upper deck gave us a nice view, even though it was very windy and quite cool up there. 

Street cars

Street scape

View from the top of the city



Some of San Francisco's "Painted Ladies"
These are Victorian-styled houses beautifully painted-the yellow one, right in the middle, is the one from the TV show, "Full House"

When we got closer to the Golden Gate Bridge it started to drizzle.  For the rest of the ride we toughed it out and stayed put up on top.  The Golden Gate Bridge is actually painted International Orange, not gold.  This orange colour is designed to provide better visibility for ships because the bridge is often shrouded in fog.  Keeping the bridge painted is an on-going task.  Someone is continually painting it-proving there is still such a thing as a job you can retire from. 
This bridge sees a huge number of vehicles crossing it daily and the toll is $5 per private vehicle.  This is a big cash cow for the City of San Francisco.



Our first view of the Golden Gate Bidge



During the tour we heard that people ride their bikes across the bridge and we decided to do that.  Fortunately, when we returned the next day (Monday, March 28) the weather was much nicer-bright and sunny, although still a little cool at 16 degrees (60 farenheit).



The total distance was 8 miles and while there were a couple of nasty hills, for the most part the bike path was level.  The bridge was quite busy with walkers and bikers.  Some bike riders are hard-core fitness buffs and some were riding their cruisers.  Oh, that was us!



A cross section of the cable



Sign on the Golden Gate Bridge
Apparently, death is the usual outcome for a jumper