23rd June 2018
Happy Pride… yep the world famous San Francisco Pride weekend starts here. Dykes on Bikes San Francisco are hosting a pre-pride party at a bar called El Rio.
The party is due to start at 1pm but we decide to get there early and offer to help with setting up.. we also get an opportunity to purchase DoB merchandise including the brand new belt buckle they have just produced… I manage to get all the buckles ordered and paid for, (I insisted that only those who had paid me would get one) so of course I have got mine and Sylvie hers too. Sylvie, very kindly, has offered to take them home and distribute them so that will save me having to cart them around the states with me for the next 4 weeks.
I also get a tee shirt and commemorative pin so am a very happy bunny.
Its been a very, very long time since I have attended a dyke event and I have to say it was a very good party, I don’t drink but that didn’t matter as the atmosphere was really good. Had a bit of a jig about and a very nice beef burger. Sylvie and I had an opportunity to get to know the girls from DoB San Francisco including Jen the President and Kate who was President for the last 2 years. We also met most of the other members and they were all very warm and welcoming. Not only that, other chapters attending Pride apart from the Australians were Portland and Monterey. I only saw one woman from Monterey and didn’t really get a chance to chat with her, but there were several grrls from Portland and it was really lovely to chat with them and get to know them.
I don’t know why some of my photos are blurry… I think there is moisture in the case.
We find out that at about 5pm there will by the annual Dyke March so we decide to go to that, then someone says we can ride our bikes in the March… well we don’t need telling twice, we immediately find out where we need to go and make our way there. It is now really quite hot and the area is crowded. By the time we get there they are just taking off, omg we have missed it.. no we haven’t, Sylvie rides up to the barrier and the police officer lets us through.. well done Sylvie. It is an excruciatingly slow march, in fact it stops and starts so many times that we almost decide to quit. The heat coming off of the bikes is tremendous and we are very relieved when it is all over.
After that we decide that we will go and ride down Lombard Street. This is the world famous twisty street on a steep incline that is often seen as an iconic part of San Francisco along with Fishermans Wharf and the cable cars. There is a very long queue of cars waiting to go down the street, but we manage to get in. Lynda has walked down so she can take some photos…
As you can see we are really just ‘walking’ the bikes down, the traffic is so slow it is impossible to develop any momentum to actually warrant putting the bike into gear. Oh well never mind at least we tried. It was still quite an experience.
We then decide its time to eat, Sylvie and Lynda would like to go to Bubba Gump’s at Fishermans Wharf and while we were waiting at the top of Lombard St we saw a couple of cable cars stop to let people off, these are the old fashioned ones, again an absolute SF icon. So, we ride back up to the top, (not via the windy street, it’s one way), and park the bikes so we can jump a cable car to Fishermans. We only have to wait a couple of minutes and it’s here… ‘$7’, says the man.. ‘eh?’ ‘$7 one way, that’s it, just one fare’ ‘oh, I only paid $1.35 the other day’ ‘$7 or get off, it’s up to you’ – we all cough up the $7 and two stops later we are getting off at the Wharf.. blimey that was an expensive trip!!
We make our way towards Bubba Gumps, the full commercial extravaganza that is now Fisherman’s is there for our delectation… fab.
We get to Bubbas and it’s an hour and a half wait for a table for 3 persons… it’s already 9pm so we give that a miss and head in to a ‘sports bar’ where we have some very delicious food. Maybe we’ll come to Bubba’s on Monday night??
Once back at the bikes, (we get an Uber), we go our separate ways. We are meeting tomorrow morning at 8am at the registration point.. getting excited now as we are just a few hours away from actually riding at the front of San Francisco Pride, hurrah!!
Tonight is especially freezing and I don’t make it back to the apartment until 11.30pm, gosh I’m knackered.
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