Sunday Excursion

This past Sunday, The Man and The Mrs. packed up the pups and decided to walk the Golden Gate Bridge. We wanted to walk earlier in the morning but couldn't wake up! We ended up getting there around 10:30am. Plenty of cars, cyclists and pedestrians. And, oh my, the tourists. But who could blame them? The bridge is a landmark, after all. As expected, it was quite breezy. The fog continued to roll in and our walk to Marin didn't have much of a view of the city. But the walk back to the San Francisco side made for a pretty stroll as the sun was breaking through the clouds.

This was taken after I waited in a long line to use the bathroom before we started our walk. Oh, talk about awkward! The women's bathroom had a long line and some women ahead of me had the brilliant idea to use the men's facilities. So a small group of us headed there. They had two stalls and two urinals. While we waited to use the stalls, I saw many a men and boys use the urinals. Luckily, their backs were to me but let me just say that they are disgusting. I saw guys who splashed the floor because they couldn't wait to aim their kibbles and bits into the urinal. Ugh. I was gone so long that The Man was getting worried about me. In the future, I will just wait in the women's line. Oh, and I totally rolled up my pants before entering in the bathroom. It was bad enough my shoes were touching the floor but I sure as hell wasn't going to have anything else. *Shiver*

It got a little humid on our walk, with the sun coming out and there being no shade on the bridge. Yes, even with the fog! The Man rolled up his sleeves and we stopped for frequent water breaks for the pups.

Behold! The glory that is Piko, The Man and Pili. Oh, and the Golden Gate Bridge :) Poor Piko. This pic really shows how she gets allergies when she goes outside and she just tears and tears.

This was taken on our walk back from Marin to San Francisco. If you look closely, you can see the cityscape behind me. And thank goodness I was wearing a jacket with removable sleeves. It was getting HOT! And I just realized after posting all the photos that Pili is camera shy! We'll have to make sure she looks our way when we take future pictures.

Lessons learned:
1. Pack snacks. While it's roughly only 1.5 miles each way, a person can get hungry and there are NO vendors on the Marin side. Just two sets of bathrooms. (Word to the bridge keeper uppers: that would also be great to have on the San Francisco side!)
2. Either wait in line to use the women's bathroom or hold it. At least until you are crossed the bridge and are in Marin where there are two buildings which both house restrooms. Ahhhh.
3. Go earlier in the day. It was crowded by the time we got there and the fumes from the cars can be a bit much. But we just about finished our walk when we passed a police-escorted protest which took up a lot of room on the walkway and caused traffic on the bridge. Bless the Bay Area and its' protests :)
4. Have wipes for Piko's bottom. Won't even go into detail about that.

I had a great time but The Man said it will be several months before we do it again. That's OK. He's so great to entertain me and my whims and I finally got to do something I've never done before. Can you imagine? I've lived in the Bay Area for nearly 30 years and never walked the Golden Gate Bridge. What a treat.