Tandem Bike Crashes & Sea Lion Encounters: California 2018

The worst thing about BYU is their non-belief in spring break. When my mom asked if I wanted to miss some school and come on my sibling's spring break trip in April, I jumped at the chance. They left a little earlier than I did, and I flew out to meet them in San Francisco.

Sunset in Cambria

Day 1

I went to school all day on Tuesday before flying out to San Francisco. My family was staying about four hours down the coast from San Francisco in a town called Cayucos Beach. While exploring around the area, they had found a town called Cambria. My sister Bri's full name is Cambria, so I was sent this picture of sunset in Cambria to tease my arrival a little bit.

When flying to San Francisco, I had to take Frontrunner to get up to Murray. I could have taken it all the way up to downtown and then taken Trax to the airport, but I bribed my cousin Jared to come pick me up from the Murray station and drive me to the airport. I flew from Salt Lake to San Francisco and then took an Uber Pool to my hostel. In Utah, we didn't have Uber Pool yet, so I thought I was on the absolute cutting edge of technology. It's crazy to look back and see what I thought was so cool then.

San Francisco airport selfie

I made it to my hostel safely after Uber Pool. Sometimes those can get a bit sketchy because you are in the car with a group of random strangers. You get dropped off at a random street corner and then just all walk to your desired location. I walked the streets of San Francisco alone at night for like 10 minutes before making it to where I was staying, the Green Tortoise. It wasn't the nicest place I've ever stayed at, but it was in a nice central location that I really loved.

Day 2

After getting a free breakfast from my hostel, I headed out to meet my family. I walked up and down the hills of San Francisco for a while before I finally met them at a bike shop near the Golden Gate Bridge. All my siblings got individual bikes, but my mom and I thought we could handle a tandem bike. It turns out that we couldn't though because one of the chains kept coming undone while we were riding. This made it impossible to be in tandem. We ended up having to switch out our tandem bike for two different individual bikes so that we could ride and keep up with the rest of our family.

Riding bikes to the Golden Gate Bridge

To be quite honest, I mostly have pictures of myself and my sister Ashlyn making terrible faces on accident from our adventures at the Golden Gate Bridge. Because those pictures are infinitely funnier than the actual good pictures, I'm definitely gonna use those ones instead of the good pictures. If you came here looking for high quality pictures, you came to the wrong place... sorry! We rode our bikes for almost five miles before getting to the bridge itself, so by the time we made it there, we were pretty tired. There's a huge hill to get up to the bridge, and even my brother Dave, who LOVES to ride bikes, had to walk up.

Me with San Francisco across the Bay

We biked all the way across the bridge and got some truly terrible pictures. When you are going around some of the supports on the bridge, you have a complete blindspot. Dave almost hit someone while going around the corner. It was hilarious. We actually saw the beginnings of a pile up happening. Dave also nearly crashed while trying to take a video of himself riding the bike and the scenery at the same time. He thought he was really skilled and then it turned out that he wasn't. It was hysterical.

We met up with my dad on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. My dad doesn't love to ride bikes, so he had just been driving around during our biking adventure. He loves to drive around and see the scenery, houses, etc. of all the places we go to. He did get out and come explore a little bit more of the Bridge area with us though.

Ashlyn at the Golden Gate Bridge

You're about to witness my very favorite picture from the entire trip. Ashlyn listened to my instructions to squat down without knowing why, and I got this gem of a picture of her. I think it's hilarious, but she might kill me for posting it.

After biking all the way back to the original bike shop, we ate a quick lunch of fish'n'chips before heading out to Alcatraz. Alcatraz was a really unique experience. You can only get there via boat. You have as much time as you want once you get there, but you have to reserve your ticket well in advance or you will not be able to make it on the boat as the tour is a very popular one. The ferry ride takes you right to the island. You are let off and allowed to go explore anywhere on the island. As long as you make it back by the last boat ride, you are allowed to do whatever you want.

Alcatraz

My family opted to take a listening tour, a recommendation from my aunt Sarah. I LOVED this tour. You hear about Alcatraz from several different prisoners and their take on it. The tour tells you where to walk and points out various features of the prison. It even includes the noises you would normally hear in those places. When you're in the dining hall, you can hear people washing dishes, talking, and eventually hear the knife fight break out when they are telling you about it. The tour is next level.

We ended up taking the last boat back to the mainland because we loved the tour so much. We ate dinner at some fancy restaurant on Pier 39 that I can't remember the name of before heading over to Ghiradelli via Lombardi Street. Essentially we just had one day in San Francisco and we wanted to make the most of it. Lombardi street was a little sketchy in our Suburban, but we made it safely.

At Ghiradelli, the wait was over an hour, so we got to hang out as a family and catch up a little bit. I don't live with my family while I am at school, so it was nice to just talk. We eventually all got ice cream and then drove from San Francisco all the way back to Cayucos Beach.

Sidewalk in front of our house

Day 3

We woke up mid-morning and got ready to go. I am normally really fast at getting ready for the day, so I ended up having an hour on the beach by myself before everyone else was ready. When everyone was finally ready, we drove down to Morro Bay. Morro Bay is another small beach town. They have tons of cute little shops there as well as a beautiful and massive beach.

Ashlyn really wanted to go shopping. She was really into thrift stores at the time and only wanted to shop. Ashlyn is special in the way that she only ever wants to do things her way. Anything else is unacceptable. My parents ended up having to come up with a complicated transportation schedule so she could do her shopping and the rest of us could go to the beach like we all wanted to.

Me at Morro Bay

At Morro Bay, it was only like 60 degrees and windy. It didn't matter to me though... I still went swimming. Pretty much nothing can stop me from getting in the water. We went back to Morro Bay to pick up Ashlyn and then walked around for a bit. We bought $40 worth of gourmet taffy and then headed back to our house.

Back at the house, Ashlyn and I went for a run on the beach. I was still trying to keep in good shape post-Vegas with Haley and Ali so I fancied myself fairly in shape. Ashlyn was still about the same speed as me though so I guess I wasn't as in shape as I thought I was.

Post-run on the beach

At the halfway point of our run, Ashlyn and I stopped under a rundown pier for a bit of a dance party. Then we raced the 1.5 miles all the way back. We eventually showered, changed, and began to pack up. We were going to leave the next day to head back home.

Before we packed up all our swimsuits and wet stuff, Bri and I took one last trip down to the ocean right in front of our house. We wanted to take one last dip in the ocean, even though it was dusk and absolutely freezing out. However, we only got to go to the ocean every once in a while, so we figured we better take advantage of it while we could. When Bri and I got into the water, we were enjoying ourselves a lot. We had a good time just splashing around and hanging out together. All of a sudden, a huge sea lion came out of nowhere and nearly hit us! It kept coming back for more, so we got out of the water and headed home for good.

Bri and I after seeing a sea lion

Day 4

We left our house in Cayucos Beach at 9am and drove the whole day. Even doing that, we did not get back home until 11:15pm. We hit a ton of traffic and it was slow going. When we got back to Provo, Ashlyn and I went to a dance party with my roommates Alyssa and Linda where we met up with my sometimes boyfriend Payton. It was good to get out and move after being all cooped up in the car for so long.

Life Lessons

Take Uber Pool when possible because it's cheap and no one will know your final destination.

If you only take terrible pictures at famous landmarks, you will probably look at them a lot more. It can be a good or a bad thing.

Take advantage of every chance you have to go in the ocean, no matter how freezing cold it is.

Continue to work out but also make it fun.

Don't disturb the local wildlife or they may attack you.

Tandem bikes are only for professionals and not the everyday citizen.