3-days without a car and pictures from San Francisco

Sunday was Day 4 of our trip. Believe it or not we had spent 3 full days in California and none of us had stepped foot into a car since driving from Sacramento Airport to our host homes in Davis Wednesday night. We biked everywhere we went while in Davis and when we visited Sacramento (except for the train ride).

I had such a great time bicycling everywhere and it was great for touring too because we could stop when we wanted to to discuss what we were seeing; it was easy to pull all our bicycles to the side of the road or path. There were about 15-20 of us bicycling together on the first day tour. Can you imagine 4-5 cars of 5 people each trying to stop to discuss things while on a tour? It just wouldn't happen. When we had a question (like needing directions when we couldn't find the Pepper Peddler's building), we could just stop and ask anyone who was walking, biking, or outside a nearby shop. We even had conversations while stopped in our bicycle lanes at a traffic light with some high school students who were in their car also stopped at the light. Their substitute teacher happened to also be bicycling in our group and so we all exchanged "hellos". And while on our bicycle tours and someone made a request for coffee, it was an easy ride and stop to get some. It was wonderful.

This feeling of freedom was appreciated even more when drove into San Francisco, a little more than an hour drive from Davis. Our wonderful driver and acting tour guide (and my host for the week) drove us in his Sprinter and we toured a few communities (like Hercules) by car. And then we did a driving tour of some San Francisco bicycle facilities and stopped to see two wonderful murals - The Women's Building and the Duboce Bikeway Mural. More on the murals in a future post.

The honest truth though is that traveling this way, by car, in San Francisco confirmed again for me that you see and experience so much more by bicycle than you do by car. And helps me better understand and able to provide examples of how bicycles can be good for business - it was so easy to stop.

Finally, here are pictures from our day in San Francisco. We did rent bicycles in San Francisco and experienced the famous hills which contested the hills of Harrisonburg. And there were thousands of novice bicyclists that day who rented bicycles to ride the hills up and around the Golden Gate Bridge because it was the cool, fun touristy thing to do. All those hills! I was proud of all of everyone, including myself. It can be done. :)