Based on the posts, tweet times, sunlight estimations and google earth travel times:
- 08:45 AM Plane Landed.
- 09:00 AM Frantic couples with backbacks running thru SFO followed by film crew. Great Race contestants? (Brothers?)
- 09:15 AM Just went through customs on San Francisco, standing in line with two guys from Amazing Race and their camera crew. (Cowboys?)
- 09:22 AM Cowboys(?) leave SFO.
- 09:30 AM Brothers(?) arrive at Coit Tower.
- 09:50 AM Cowboys(?) arrive at Coit Tower.
- 10:15 AM Brothers(?) leave Coit Tower.
- 10:25 AM Storm Troopers are escorting 'Amazing Race' contestants through the Letterman Digital Arts Center. (Brothers?)
- 10:27-46 AM Cowboys(?) leave Coit Tower.
- 10:37-46 AM Cowboys arrive at LDAC.
- 11:14 AM Amazing Race contestants just completed near-final stage by rappelling up San Francisco's Coit Tower! (Models)
- 11:58 AM The Amazing Race contestants scaled the tower then hopped in a SF cab, but I didn't see which team it was. (Models)
According to Google Earth:
- 27 Mins from SFO to Coit Tower.
- 10 Mins from Coit Tower to LDAC.
Any thoughts?
It's been 15 years since I lived in the San Francisco area, but I'd be surprised if you could get from SFO to Coit Tower or Coit Tower to LDAC as fast as those given times. There tends to be traffic jams on I-280 coming in from SFO (probably 15-20 miles) and once you leave the freeway, you have to deal with stoplights on city streets getting to Coit Tower. It's the same from Coit Tower from LDAC. Frequent stoplights with a 30 mph or so speed limit would make getting there in 10 minutes difficult. However, since they were there on a weekend, that would help. If I had to guess, I'd say 35-40 minutes from SFO to Coit and 15-20 minutes from Coit to LDAC.
It might actually be faster to take the subway from the airport to downtown SF and get a cab to Coit Tower, but since I never rode the subway to the airport (the section going to the airport opened after I left the area), I don't know if it would work or not. I wouldn't expect any of the teams to know that and it would be a big risk on the final leg. Now that I think about it, the subways run less often on weekends.
The tweets are mostly consistent and it indicates Dan/Jordan having a 10-15 minute shrinking lead over Jet/Cord as they head to the Tonga Room. Brent and Caite took about 2 hours from the time they left the airport until they finished Coit Tower? Ouch.
Much faster than I would of done it though.
Plaidmoon