The weekend after my birthday, me and KB decided to go to Angel Island, a chunk of land in the San Francisco Bay. We wanted to rent bikes and explore the island. Turned out to be quite an adventure!
The adventure actually began before we got to the island. Since you need to take a ferry to get there, we decided to leave on the one ferry out of Alameda, my town, and incidentally, an island itself (though artificially so, tidal canal, my ass, cheaters). But apparently, and this I learned the hard way, there are TWO ferry stations on Alameda, a seemingly small town. The ferry terminals are on opposite sides of the island, and it was the other one that the ferry we wanted departed from. Eh, live and learn. There is more than one ferry that goes to Angel Island, and in order to catch that one, we had to drive clear up to Tiburon, where we caught the hourly, 10-minute ferry.
Once there, we immediately found the bike place, donned helmets, and were off!
Boy oh, boy were we surrounded by beauty and great weather! I'd assumed that the path would be relatively flat, but it wasn't, and good thing too, because our hard-pedaling was rewarded by breathtaking views. There were views of San Francisco and the East Bay and of the lovely Golden Gate Bridge:
The landscape on the actual island was amazing as well. There is nothing like the Bay Area in the summer. All the natives fall into dormancy, turning all golden and luscious while the trees and the deeply-rooted hold on somehow in the heat:
Here I am, hamming it up, looking all bad-ass between panting and nearly dying on the uphills:
There were interesting, semi-dilapidated buildings to explore. We weren't paying much attention to much besides beauty, so my facts on island history are vague. Apparently it was a military base as well as an immigration station (but I'm not sure which came first). I love old buildings, especially the falling-down kinds. Here is me thru a hole-in-the-wall:
And here is more ham-age on a corroding staircase:
Ultimately, we found our way to the seashore. I wouldn't normally go bathing in the SF Bay, but we just had to stick our aching pigs in the sea:
Especially when it looked all emerald-sparkling like this:
And here is a shot with the rest of the world behind me:
And of course, all good things come to an end, and let me tell you, at the end of the world there are CHEESEBURGERS! And beer. Ah, what a great day!
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