We had a great time in San Francisco and the Bay area, special thanks to our wonderful host Shannon and our new friend Roger, and of course our fellow cycling friend Rob who we had one last get together at Alcatraz today.
We feel sad that we have to say good bye to our friends, but we are getting back on our bikes tomorrow on our way to our final destination of San Diego and the Mexican border.
Update:
Day 156
We spent the day sightseeing around San Francisco. We checked out the waterfront, and came across a self-propelled row-boat that had crossed the pacific with two British men this past summer. They had no support until 3 days before arriving to San Francisco when they required a helicopter drop off an emergency stock of food.
In the afternoon we visited Japan Town and had lunch there. At the end of the day we took the cable car back to our hotel. It was a very cool experience as we watched people through store windows as we travelled through the city.
Day 157
We left San Francisco on our bikes to get to Cupertino to stay with our friend Shannon for the weekend. We decided to take the Cal-train to Cupertino as it was supposed to rain and it would have made for a very long bike ride. The Cal-train is well set up for cyclists, as each train can take at least 40 bicycles. However, they are not really designed for loaded bikes, and getting the bikes up onto the train after 5 steps of stairs was back breaking. We somehow managed to get our bikes onboard, later to find out during the ride that bikes with panniers are not usually allowed as they take up twice as much room as an unloaded bike. We had looked everywhere online the night before but could not find anything about loaded bikes on the Cal-train, but the Cal-train ticket guy said that since they were not too busy it would be okay for this one time. The Cal-train employee told us that they are under a lot of pressure from the San Francisco Bike Coalition to fit more bikes on to each train, and hence they don’t usually allow touring bikes onboard. It all worked out in the end as we had strategically avoided the rush hour. There were still many people with bikes who came onboard, but there were always extra spaces for their bikes. Getting the bikes off the train was as exciting and as difficult, but we managed again without breaking our backs. The other cyclists told us that our bikes were intense!
The Cupertino area had very good bicycle lanes and we had no problem getting to Shannon’s house. We killed time in the Cupertino area until Shannon was off work. We had a warm welcome from Shannon and her housemates, Tara and Vidya, then later went out to dinner with Shannon, her brother-in-law Sunni, and her friend Roger from Edmonton. It rained quite heavily that night and we were glad we were staying indoors. Shannon and her housemates kindly put us up in their guestroom!
Day 158
We had a wonderful day with Shannon and Roger as we got our personal tour of their workplace, Google! It was very neat, and it was an eye opener in terms of what a work place can be like. It was definitely one of the trip highlight days for us. Shannon then took us to a famous shopping district in San Jose, where it was beautifully lit up with Christmas lights. As per the forecast it rained in the evening, but we managed to stay dry as we were travelling with Shannon. 🙂 Later in the evening we went out to Shannon’s friend Jay’s birthday/housewarming potluck party. We had a great time meeting all their friends!
Day 159
We woke up to on and off rain, but it didn’t matter to us because we were inside! 🙂 Shannon drove us out to the Napa Valley, where we toured around wineries. It was sunny and beautiful out in the valley, and we could see why it was a popular wine growing area. We tasted some great wines, and even went to a winery that was in an actual castle built to be as authentic as possible by the winery owners. We went to the American Culinary Institute for dinner, where we had an amazing time, especially as we had excellent service and they excelled in catering to allergies (which has been quite a rare event on our trip).
Day 160
As Shannon had to go to work today, we went into San Francisco on the Cal-train to meet up with fellow touring cyclist Rob for a tour of Alcatraz. It was surreal to be inside an old penitentiary and to visit actual cells that were occupied by many infamous people such as Al Capone. We even saw the actual cells from where the famous “The Great Escape from Alcatraz” happened. Three inmates had chiseled away around an air vent with spoons and tools made from cutlery to allow them to eventually escape. There was a great view of the city from the island, and the beautiful sunny day made it all the better. After Alcatraz we walked around the waterfront with Rob and got our picture taken in front of a giant Christmas tree. It is hard to imagine that we have been cycling for so long that we are now close to Christmas! We said our goodbye to Rob and wished each other a safe travel home, and we promised to stay in touch as we head our separate ways.
In the evening Shannon took us out to dinner at Google. Google allows employees to bring a few guests once in a while for dinner which we thought was a neat thing for them to do. They had all allergens clearly labelled which allowed us to have a great meal. We couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be able to eat at Google all the time on our bike trip. We would probably eat way more than our fair share! 🙂 After getting back from dinner, Shannon’s housemate Tara made us soy, gluten, and peanut free brownies which we all thoroughly enjoyed as we shared a common bond of food allergies. She even made enough so that we could take some with us on our bike trip. Thank you Tara! 🙂
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Trip Around The World 
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