Tandem bikes across the Golden Gate Bridge

Greetings, friends.

Happy Tuesday from the beautiful City of San Francisco.

Today, I’d like to share the final recap of the amazing surprise weekend visit from our Florida friends, Grant and Bre.

Be sure to check out our adventures on Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3.

On Sunday morning, we woke up a little tired from the fun of Saturday, but pulled ourselves together, walked to the huge Niketown for some shopping, stopped for a greasy lunch at Roxanne’s Cafe, then came back and suited up for an outdoor adventure.

Dave and I have rented bikes a couple times before, and with our visitors, we wanted to add a little twist. Tandem bikes it was.

We rented two tandem bikes and took off on a one-hour biking trip through the City along the Embarcadero and over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito in Marin County, which is about eight miles. This is a perfect biking route for those visiting the City, as you get to see some gorgeous views.

The weather started out nice, but got a little chilly once we hit the windy areas. There were a couple pretty tough uphill portions that had us panting and grinding the pedals, but overall the ride was easy.

Let me tell you about riding a tandem bike. If you sit in the back, you have no control. I definitely felt a little scared at times, but trusted Dave to steer us in the right direction. He took us off a little drop into the sand once as we pulled off at a vista point and I nearly fell off the bike. A small fight ensued. But I dusted myself off and sucked it up.

Sausalito stop

We arrived in Sausalito, biked along the Bay and then had appetizers and drinks at Trident on the water. (Terribly slow service at the Trident. The only reason we went there was for the easy and free bike parking, but wouldn’t repeat that stop, as Dave and I have gone to much better places in Sausalito before.)

After lunch, we waited in line for the ferry and then took it back across the Bay to San Francisco, giving our tired legs and butts some time to rest.

Once back in the City, we turned in our bikes and sat down at one of the closest restaurants we could for the “last supper” of the weekend. We ended up at Lou’s Fish Shack near Fisherman’s Wharf and enjoyed some live music and seafood. (Even though we had proclaimed earlier in the weekend we wouldn’t return to the tourist areas, alas, we didn’t have enough time to head back into the neighborhoods for dinner on the last night.)

From there, we went home to the apartment, loaded up all of Grant and Bre’s stuff and then dropped them off at the airport to catch their overnight flight home.

And then there were two

It was sad and lonely to come back to our 550-square-feet apartment with only two people. I wasn’t exactly sure we would all four fit for the three nights, but somehow we made it work for the weekend quite naturally. We had a solid system in place by the second day.

We decided from here on out, every single year we are going to visit each other or go on a trip during St. Patrick’s Day weekend. That will give us something to look forward to all year.

Next year our foursome is headed to Las Vegas, baby!

I’ve never had a regular group trip on the calendar and very excited about it. What about you? Do you have any annual trips with friends?