So we finally finished up our work and took off to San Francisco on Friday, May 31st. It was a long drive up through the central valley and we finally arrived at our friends' Dan & Linda's just before midnight. They live in the cool little area of Rockridge, an Oakland neighborhood just across the boarder from Berkley. Our initial plan was to have a relaxing stay in the city before our various treks into the wild, but as it turned out a bunch of our friends planned a camping trip to Angel Island for the weekend! We had all our gear with us so we decided to join them. It was the first backpacking trip I ever took without driving to the trailhead - we walked the three blocks to the BART station from Dan & Linda's and took the train to downtown San Francisco, then we walked to the ferry building where we hooked up with our friends Mike and Casey and the rest of the gang. There were 12 of us in all and we ferried right past Alcatraz to Angel Island - an ex-military post, now a state park in the middle of the bay. We disembarked and hiked up the hill to our campsite which our friends reserved six months ago! We had beautiful views of the city and suburbs surrounding the bay. We hiked around, cooked up a big dinner and then hit the tents. The next day we had a leisurely morning, packed up and headed down to the ferry dock for the ride back to town. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were spent visiting other friends in the Bay Area and sightseeing - we watched the Red Wings in the Stanley Cup finals with Mike in San Jose, checked out the Stanford campus in Palo Alto, drove the coast from Half Moon Bay to the city, strolled through Golden Gate Park, the Japanese Tea Garden and past the De Young museum, and we hiked the coast from Lands End around to the Palace of the Leagion of Honor with stunning views of the Golden Gate bridge. Now, we're all packed up and ready to head out to Yosemite tomorrow. The weather looks perfect and we hope to avoid the crowds by hitting it mid-week. Stay tuned for more once we get back on the grid...