steph in chinatown
Click on Steph to see the rest of yesterday's pictures. It's too bad that picture is backlit.

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Andrea pushed the bike back over to the garage, and I noticed a big splat of gas in the driveway where the bike had been. A little trail of gas dribble led back to the garage where she'd pushed it. Uh-oh. She tried to start it again, in front of the garage -- another big splat. Once again, uh-oh. We parked the bikes and took her car to dinner.

So, now I'm back in CarbLand. Here's what I know, and have done, so far:

• The splat/dribble is coming from the air box drain hose.
• The petcock seems to be working fine.
• There is a special place in hell for people who design motorcycles so that the frame runs over the carbs, causing you to have to pull them out to one side.
• The Vulcan has two carburetors; one is now fully inspected and cleaned up, and the float height adjusted. The other carb has a stripped float cover screw which needs to be drilled out.
• I need to remember to call Redwood City Honda/Kawasaki/Suzuki/blah/blah for a new air filter tomorrow.
• Tonight, I'll pull the sparkplugs to see if they're fouled, as well as drill out that float cover screw.

the city by the bay.
Stephanie and I rode up to San Francisco yesterday to go to Lush and to get some more historical markers. We took a bunch of pictures at Fort Point, which is beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, and is the only brick fort west of the Mississippi. We ended up chatting with Pedro, one of the military guards at the fort, who was really sweet. There's no rule that we have to be in the historical marker photos, so Pedro volunteered to sit on our bikes for the shots. I think he looks better on Steph's Triumph, sadly. The gun just goes better with the British Racing Green standard than with the red sportsbike. Sigh.

We got some great photos on the access road leading to the fort, too. It was really a gorgeous day at the bridge. The weather was perfect -- T-shirt and leathers temperature, light breeze, no fog. It was a great reminder that San Francisco is an amazing city.

Steph had the really nice idea of taking the Great Highway up to the Golden Gate Bridge instead of traversing the city via 19th St. After the Bridge, we headed east; almost all of the San Francisco historical markers are in the northeast corner of the city. We nabbed one in the Presidio, then rode through Laurel Heights, Nob Hill, and Chinatown, finally ending up at Lush in Union Square.

San Francisco neighborhoods, for the non-Bay Area readers.

It was a really nice afternoon. I don't spend that much time in northeastern SF, so it was fun and educational to ride around and see the people, observe their weekend rituals, even just be on the roads with the traffic. Chinatown was especially fun. So many people milling about, shouting, singing, playing musical instruments, passing out flyers for hundreds of restaurants. Little old Chinese men giggled at us from their board games when we stopped for photos in Portsmouth Plaza. It was a nice day.