San Francisco is hilly. Not too bad in the city, but definitely around the city. It is also a very very popular tourist destination. There were a ton of people there taking photos and riding bicycles on the sea wall. The ride up to the golden gate bridge was reminiscent of the photos of old Spanish cities from movies and pictures.
The city itself is very similar to Vancouver in its bike friendliness, cultural feeling, art focus, tourism focus, and proximity to the ocean. We rode through, ate some fish and chips and sandwiches on the dock, observed the ridiculousness of pigeons, and split up. Bryan and Maggie wanted groceries, Erin wanted art supplies. The Dick Blick was a bit of a disappointment in that they did not stock as much as, and certainly not more than, they do online. However, Erin picked up burnt sienna as well as a couple other colours of water colour paints before we proceeded to the rapid transit system.
We got off at Daly City and went to the local grocery store for a couple makings of dinner before hopping on a bus into Pacifica. Wisdom would've put us on another bus to Half Moon bay before sunset, but we rode the last 25 miles ariving around 8pm in the dark. Ate and set up camp and went to bed. We tried going fly-less under a tree and had great success with both staying dry and keeping down the condensation.
