California 11, or, Newspaper Hat

Since on a previous trip (which it turns out we never really detailed in these pages in our rush to Afghanistan) we biked across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito and on to Tiburon, we figured we needed a different touristy bike ride this time. So we decided on a spin around the perimeter of The City, starting at Pac Bell Park or whatever it is now, up around the Embarcadero to the Marina, past the foot of the bridge, down by the Sutro Baths to Ocean Beach and then down to some unknown spot to cross back over to the bay side. Our first detour was when your correspondent decided it would be way cooler to bike over the top of Telegraph Hill rather than around us. So that basically kicked our asses right from the outset.

Then over by the Lincoln Park Golf Course and the Legion of honor we made a vain search for a small trail that led to us riding up and down another decent sized hill several times. So that was ass-kicking number two.

So when we got to the Beach Chalet, we didn't really have much choice but to stop for a beer. And when we got done with the beer, we figured we might as well just head straight for home through Golden Gate Park and the Wiggle. So our bike ride wasn't quite as long as we planned, but not too bad.

But anyway, the point of this was the above detail from the WPA-era murals at the Beach Chalet. Love the newspaper hat; love the Mark Twain book; love the angry sandcastle maker. There are a lot of other things to love in those murals, but these are some good ones that are right next to each other.