My 14 hour flight was to depart from San Francisco's International Airport (SFO) at 10pm that night, so I wanted to do all I could to be good an exhausted by the time I got on that plane to enable me to sleep as much as possible. My plan worked quite well. While I didn't have a terribly restful sleep, and it was often interrupted, by the time we landed in Sydney, I was ready to take on the day in front of me which included a two hour layover followed by a three hour flight to Auckland. In any case, this entry shows what I saw on my bike ride from Fisherman's Wharf over the Golden Gate bridge and back, and I also swung up into the Presidio on the way back to Fisherman's Wharf. ... read more

I had seen the submarine that sits very near the Jeremiah O' Brien, but had not seen this Liberty Ship in previous trips. I found it interesting to look around on board the ship, from the very complex engine room, to the crew quarters, to the 3" and 5" guns mounted on the bow and stern. The "Liberty Ships" were introduced during WWII when it was clear that the enemy was destroying ships at a faster pace than ships were generally being produced. Thus, many ships of this exact same model were produced during that time, but appearantly, the Jeremiah O' Brien is the last to still be in existence. Not being on board a ship of that size in the past, I figured it was pretty well moored to the dock, but it still very ... read more