Gearing Up

I've spent the last two days exploring San Francisco, waiting for Jack to get in.

Pros: culture of embracing failure, diversity, concentration of passionate people and resources to make things happen

Cons: super expensive to live, congested, hard to get around at times

This is a gorgeous city.

Our bikes we're in boxes waiting for us at the FedEx store in heart of the financial district. The bike lockers to store our bikes overnight were on the other side of the bay. There was one of me and two bikes. San Francisco has great public transit. Multiple trips on the BART and the subway, while putting back together and rebuilding our bikes left me short on time.

Lesson #4: When pressed for time, don't be afraid to run in flip flops, against crowds of financial analysts leaving work.

I met a homeless man name Sean who was about my dads age outside of the bike lockers. He helped me put back together our bikes. He knew bikes well, he said he used to love to ride up and down the coast on weekend trips. He through out his back and could no longer be a carpenter. He told me about his addiction to cocaine in his early twenties and how he went to prison for three years, became sober, and learned carpentry. He said he drifts from city to city up and down the coast and has fallen into a spiral of drinking and depression. He told me that there are two kinds of homeless people. "Good" ones and "crooked" ones. He said "crooked" people will do anything to meet their addiction, and that their addiction comes from a place of deep hopelessness. He was excited about our trip and couldn't believe that we wanted to be in classroom, teaching students for our job.

Thank you to Warm Planet Bikes for helping us get our bikes ready for the ride and letting us store them overnight!

Lesson #5: You don't know what people have been through or experienced in their life. More important than not making excuses, is to not make assumptions. Easier said than done.

Thank you to Morgan at Warm Planet Bikes for helping us install our front racks and getting our bikes ready for the road. Morgan just got back from a bike tour he did across New Zealand and Australia. It's a big world out here. The shop was crazy busy, people were constantly coming in and out. Thank you Morgan for taking the time to help us.

Thank you to George and Rohan for letting us crash with them in their studio apartment in the heart of the Mission Street District. George your going to be an incredible teacher and Rohan your pictures are going to make us question how we live and treat each other.

Mission Street Cultural Center