We decided to take a week off from our trip and play in San Francisco. We have done well as tourists visiting many fine places this great American city has to offer. The first day after walking all over the city and getting our bearings, we purchased the "CityPass" for only $50 apiece which enabled us to take the any bus, trolley, or cable car for one week and got us into six fine museums, such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the De Young Art Museum, Legion of Honor Art Museum, two Aquariums, the Cable Car Museum, Cable Car rides, the hands-on Exploratorium. We stayed in the most amazing hostel called the Green Tortoise. Free breakfasts every morning, free dinner 3 nights a week, all the internet you could possible use, organized outings, and a lot of travelers from around the world. The evening life around the hostel is astonishing with a mix of music clubs, Chinese restaurants, Italian eateries, girlie strip clubs.

I got my hair cut in Chinatown by a male stylus who spoke very little English but did seem to mutter over and over as he cut my hair "too much hair".

I went on a tour of the amazing Hearst Castle and saw the Imax movie on the building of the castle. [Pictures are here.]

From down on the Pacific highway looking up at the castle way way up on the hill, the castle looks like a Disney like icon but it is something total different when taking tour.

I was very lucky to get the last ticket of the last tour of the day. (mostly because I asked if all the sold out tickets has been picked up.)After waiting an hour I should up at 3:15 when the people on the waiting list got to buy tickets. I got the last available seat on the tour.

For those that do not know about W.R Hearst, he built an empire through publishing major Newspapers and Magazines :throughout the United States in the 1920 to 1950's. He had a dream when he was in his late 50's to build an amazing palace to house a full spectrum of art, sculptures, tapestries from all over the world that dated from around the 3rd century AD to the 21st century.

The famous movie Citizen Kane was based on Hearst's life and he attempted to quash it - with pretty significant success.

Well here we are entering the big city. We have lots of friends to see here and then we'll ride down to San Diego and the border.

We just spend the last couple of days in Oxnard with our incredible new friends Pat and Cat, who just returned from riding their bikes all over the world. Check out their website at worldriders2.com. They're the most gracious people you could imagine, treating us to warm hospitality and touring wisdom and encouragement. Pat and Cat rode not only the huge ride we have planned, but across the US, Europe, and Africa as well!

Randy is feeling better and Nancy has still not caught the cold.

Our plans are in a bit of flux, but first visit friends in LA, then ride to San Diego to visit another old friend, then go to Tijuana for a haircut for Randy, and then maybe rent a car to come home. We should be home in early November.

We made it into LA. The original plan was to ride around the city on the beach, but we really had to go visit Nancy's old friends Ildi and Paul in South Pasadena. So we took the bikes right onto the Metrolink and the Metro and made it into the city. The transport is quite friendly to bikes. (As you can see, though, I wasn't really very happy about being on the train instead of riding...)

There are lots of pictures on the Southern California section in the Photos page of Paul's incredible house, garden, and stonework. We were in awe. It was like a magic garden hidden away in the city.

There are new pictures of Southern CA on the photos page.