Showers!  It has been one whole week since our last shower.  At this rate we should only have one more shower to look forward to before we are home!  75 cents for six amazing minutes of feeling clean.  Showers make me so happy!

Carnegie Vehicular Park

These California hills look like someone picked up the sheet of Earth and put it back down all crinkled up.

San Francisco

What an incredible bike ride!  The fresh breeze coming in off of the ocean is just what we all needed.  I feel refreshed.  The kids both fell asleep – small miracle!  Scott had the perfect idea to ride our bikes from the Golden Gate Park to the bridge.

The kids both fell asleep – small miracle - after our bike ride!

We were super lucky and found a parking space after only a few minutes of waiting.  We rode our bikes almost all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge. We stopped and started a few times, but the overall trip was two hours.  Cody rode like a champ. Brooke was super speedy and had to pull over to wait for us a few times.  I never tired of watching people point at Cody and hear them say in several languages, “Look at that boy!”  I only understood the English and Spanish, but we got the gist.  I’m sure his bike being pink is a pointing factor too, but no one can believe how little he is and on two wheels.  Thanks to Scott’s hard work Cody never had training wheels.  He started out on a clown bike with no pedals.  Cody has been riding with pedals and without training wheels since he was two and a half.  Biking was definitely a good way to go to tour around San Francisco up close.

Notice the jackets and lack of sun.  At 11 am it was 56 degrees.  I asked some locals if that was normal weather, and they said it was.

The Golden Gate Bridge. The fog was a bit heavy.

We kept seeing these wild “Go Cars” all over the place.

We happened to show up literally ten minutes before an America Cup race. No, we didn’t plan this. We wouldn’t have made it on time if we had!

They had a pool set up so the kids could race remote control sail boats.

As I was taking this picture Cody decided to roll over and almost fell into the pool. Brooke grabbed him at the last minute.

The kids having a “Who’s stronger?” contest while we waited for the boat race to begin.

The picture is a seven minute fitness circuit center. Scott wanted to stop, but he didn’t want to stop the kids biking momentum.

The kids are picking up their bikes like Scott has done in some of his photos. Behind them is the Golden Gate Bridge hiding in the fog.

Brooke with her drawn “kids”. She and Cody played for a long time with them in the car today and created a world where Cody had to fight Captain Hook. Their playing didn’t even include any arguing today.

We were very close to the Golden Gate Bridge on our bikes.  Ideally we would have ridden over the bridge and back, but I wasn’t sure Cody was even going  to make it back from where we were.  He impressed us today.

While Cody was excited about the Golden Gate Bridge for Brooke, he was more excited about the construction equipment right before the bridge.

Brooke’s excited face after finally getting to see the Golden Gate Bridge.

Brooke said it looked as if someone erased the top of the bridge.

Highway Number 1 – Along the California Coast Heading North

The views along the coast are incredible.  However, I asked if Scott might have had his fill of slalom driving for the day.  Three hours down and only two more to go.  My stomach may never be the same…

So we stopped not long after I wrote the sentence above. Cody finished up his nap while Scott and Brooke hiked down to the ocean from our campsite. We ate our crock pot dinner of Southwestern chicken, visited with our camp neighbors who happened to be a teacher and a principal, and enjoyed our campfire.

While Brooke and Scott hiked Cody did what Cody loves to do.  He went digging!  He made another racetrack for his monster trucks.  He spent quite a long time explaining to me what the rules were.  He has been so used to sandy soil that the super hard ground was a little frustrating for him, but he dug on.  The picture above and on the right is of a downed tree.  Scott wavered on whether we should have a fire.  He finally looked at the down tree and said, “We are going to have a fire, and I’m going to cut that up.”  “That?”  I asked.  And he did.  He cut it up and we enjoyed a very nice fire.

After Brooke came back from her hike with Scott she was all excited about “bush whacking.”  She went bush whacking around the campground looking for small sticks and fun new discoveries.

Someone was a little wild right before bed.  We didn’t even have any dessert.

It was a bundle up night.  So crazy to think that just a week ago we were in the 108 degree Valley of Fire.  Tonight we put on pants and coats, last week we were taking off as many clothes as possible. Tonight we had a fire, last week we were on fire.  On July 22nd we started the day with hot chocolate.  On July 15th we started the day just plain old hot.