Day Two Dawns

Believe it or not, I slept like a baby in that sleeping bag on a half inflated air mattress in a hot pink tent on the windy San Francisco bay. And even though I fell asleep at 7:30 on Fri, I slept until 6:00 AM on Sat. Ten and a half hours. In one night. Those of you who know me know that 10½ hours is nearly 2 nights worth of sleep for me.

I woke feeling physically refreshed and doing pretty well, once I willed my legs to move and get my body out of the tent! Once I started moving, I actually felt pretty good. I got dressed, got a bit to eat and set out on my way.

Day two is the hardest. I was told that is always is the hardest day of the 3. Our path was to cross the Golden Gate Bridge and walk to Mill Valley and back. A total of 22 miles.

The first part of the walk, across the bridge, was amazing. Anyone who has been on the bridge at sunrise knows what I mean. I have pics but they cannot truly to it justice. I walked and took pics. It was a lovely way to start my day.

They were right. The walk on Sat was really hard. It was fun walking around Sausalito, through the city, seeing up close the houses and things I’d only seen from a boat on the bay. A lovely and interesting city.

We had our security crew with us all the way as well as our bike cop companions. They were awesome. Some were on bikes, some on motorcycles. All the vehicles were decorated. A pink bra on the motorcycle fairing. A pink teddy bear mascot strapped on the back. A pink bra with extra large cups becomes a bike basket. The ideas were very creative and quite humorous.

They rode with us in places where the sweep vans didn’t have access. They waited on busy street corners and put their orange vested selves between us and the cars to make sure that no one started into the intersection until all of us were safely on the other side.

But their role was so much more than that. They were rowdy and full of energy. They cheered and laughed and made jokes. The encouraged us and gave us a hard time if we weren’t stretching while we waited for the light to change. Later on, along the trails, they had gallons of water to replenish our bottles if needed. They kept track of how many mile we’d walked and how much farther until the next pit stop or lunch or camp.

One lady had a little toy dinosaur. As you walked past her in the cross walk, she’d touch your shoulder with the dinosaur and say something about how dinosaur lovin would get you through. And the one guy had a stuffed duck and a kazoo and he’d blow of the kazoo and then yell ‘Walk towards the duck, ladies!” Sure it was silly. But laughing helped. And their energy was contagious.