Kill Imperialism!

Today I got a bike, and then travelled north around the bay. I visited Berkeley and Sausalito, and drove through San Francisco. I wish I had a camera for the trip. Maybe another time.

Berkeley: Nice looking town, incredibly beautiful (and hilly) campus. I saw a handmade sign on University Ave that said "Kill Imperialism! 104.1," so I tuned in, and it had pretty good music. Unfortunately, the signal doesn't go much farther than the town itself. Parking in Berkeley is awful. The campus, though, was great. I saw some really nice looking trees (again, really wish I had that camera), and some very well maintained buildings. Also, lots of construction.

Sausalito: When I arrived, the town was packed, presumably for some sort of Memorial Day Weekend celebration. I saw many expensive looking restaurants and clothing stores, and a few decent coffee shops. I followed one road up for a while, and parked to take a walk around. Walking through the main part of the village (along the water) wasn't very interesting, just the restaurants and shops I mentioned, and lots of people. I eventually hiked up one street away from the water, and began to wonder about the mental condition of the first person to decide to build houses there. It's steep. These were 35-45 degree slopes we're talking about, with plenty of nasty curves. I saw one section of the sidewalk, on a street corner, that sloped upwards as it curved around the building, and must have hit at least a 70 degree incline. It did make pretty much every house have a nice view though. Still insane.

Got back on the road, and took 101 to the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco. On the way, there were more steep slopes and windy turns (and a really cool tunnel), but not nearly so much as in Sausalito proper. The bridge really wasn't that cool. I don't know what everyone is always banging on about.

Route 101 goes through the middle of San Francisco, for whatever reason, which makes for some awful traffic during rush hour. It also means that I got a chance to sit in traffic and look around. Not a very interesting looking place, but I did see a cool looking bar with a huge mural covering the outside wall, in 19th century advertisement fashion. I also saw a drive-thru coffee shop.

Not much else interesting to say. I'm going to drive out to the coast tomorrow (over some mountains) and head south to Santa Cruz, and hopefully make it all the way to Monterey and Caramel. I'm really going to miss that camera.

Also, I tested out the bike. It needs a bit of work (new chain, maybe clean up the wheels a bit), but the good news is, it makes it to Google in under 20 minutes.

Also also, I noticed that Google has a water fountain in the shape of a binary tree.