FRIDAY 6:00am

Just outside the bus station I found a bum and asked him for help deciphering the directions. I told him I wanted to go to the golden gate bridge and he looked all confused at this crumpled bundle of papers I handed him.

“No,” he said, “They are all wrong. What you really want to do is get on that bus across the street. That will take you straight to the bridge.”

The thought of hopping on another bus didn’t sit well with me. I had just spent 7 hours on one and had this really great plan of walking the sixteen miles to Corte Madera, relying on no one but myself to get there. But the street names were Chinese and the Golden Gate Bridge was the real start of my adventure so I scrounged all the pocket change I could and paid my fare to the bridge. That was it though. My legs would carry me the rest of the way.