Photos for Wednesday, 8/13

Cardiff to Imperial Beach, CA

Wednesday, 8/12 - 57 miles. We officially ended the trip tonight at the U.S. - Mexican border south of Imperial Beach, CA. Today was a long day which covered a lot of different areas. At Torrey Pines we encountered our last big climb of the trip. It was moderately steep but the hill went on for quite awhile. There were also a number of small steep climbs in the San Diego area. We stopped in La Jolla Cove where seals and people were sharing the beach. The seals were sunning themselves on the rocks seemingly oblivious to the people swimming in close proximity to them. One thing that was striking in the Cove was a very distinct putrid smell which everyone seemed to be ignoring! Cycling into downtown San Diego entailed traversing a bunch of interconnected bike paths which was a little confusing. Plus, Hal got his second flat. After a few wrong turns we finally ended up downtown where we boarded a ferry which took us to Coronado. After a late lunch in Coronado we followed a bike path all the way to Imperial Beach which I believe is the last town along the coast before you reach the Mexican border. It was getting late in the day so we cycled at a relatively fast pace so we would hopefully reach the border before dark. After leaving Imperial Beach we had to ride inland because the coastal area immediately south of Imperial Beach is a large wetlands area that is not accessible. We had to ride east, then south and then west towards the coast. The road was pretty desolate and the only civilization we saw was an ocassional horse ranch. When the road headed west it was flanked by steep mountains to the south. A substantial steel fence stretched across the adjacent mountains indicating the border with Mexico. Eventually we reached the Pacific Ocean at the point where U.S. - Mexican border starts. The location is in a somewhat remote park that was closed to vehicular traffic. Only pedestrians and bicyclists were allowed in the park. A large arena was located on the Mexican side of the border very close to the border fence. You could hear music coming from Mexico and we saw people swimming on the Mexican side. (The border fence extended out into the ocean). The U.S. side was devoid of people and any sign of development. It appeared to be a large wetlands area set aside as a preserve. Looking across the border fence the houses and apartments directly adjacent to the fence looked modern and upscale. Signs warned you not to go near the border fence so you had to stay at least 20 feet from it. A border patrol officer was sitting in his truck watching us so I obeyed the sign. As the sun was setting we decided it would be prudent to head back to Imperial Beach where we had made a motel reservation. A short 5 mile ride in the dark (with lights) brought us to the motel at about 9 pm. Tomorrow morning we have a 1.6 mile ride to a car rental place. According to Hal's bike computer we covered a total of 1,905 miles over about six weeks of riding. We took two forced rest days (one in WA and one in OR) due to mechanical bike problems. And, we took one real rest day in Oxnard, CA.

Photos for Tuesday, 8/11

Dana Point to Cardiff, CA

Tuesday, 8/11 - 46 miles. I think we are at the last hiker/biker state park campsite heading south. Today included riding through Camp Pendleton which is a base for the U.S. Marines. We heard a lot of live fire exercises going on - not sure what was being fired but it was quite loud. Definitely not small arms being fired. Last night's hiker/biker campsite was poorly situated behind and very close to the public restrooms. However, today the site is located at the end of the campground and it is overlooking the ocean. We actually made it in early today so I am relaxing and watching the surfers ride the waves. Tomorrow should be our last day of riding. We will follow the coastline adjacent to San Diego and finish in Imperial Beach which is the last town on the coast before the Mexican border. There are train tracks that have run along much of the Pacific coast. Up north of here they appeared largely abandoned but in southern CA they are in heavy use. Frequent passenger trains operated both by Amtrak and by the state rumble by in both directions. Two things we have noticed in CA state parks. The charge for bike camping varies significantly from park to park without any reason. Also, some parks require you to use quarters to take a shower while other parks require you to buy tokens for the showers. The amount of time the shower runs for each token or quarter also seems to vary. Sometimes you only 2.5 minutes for each quarter or token. Other times you get much longer. Finally, in some parks you can adjust the water temperature while in other parks the temperature is fixed. The impact of Mexican culture is very apparent in CA. Many breakfast places serve you nachos and hot sauce with a traditional breakfast such as an omelet. I included a picture of a delicatessen called a mexicatessen which is a very clever play on words.

Manhattan Beach to Dana Point, CA

Monday, 8/10 - 64 miles. Part of the route this morning took us through some commercial/industrial areas in Torrance and Carson, CA. Other parts of the route followed a series of interconnected bike trails. Some of them were right on the beach. However, at least one trail followed the LA river which is encased in a deep concrete channel with high levees on either side of the river. The river only had a very small amount of water in it. The bike trail was on top of one of the levees. It was not particularly scenic. Eventually we ran out of bike trails in Newport. The riding from Newport to Laguna beach and eventually to Dana Point left a lot to be desired. The road had two lanes in each direction with cars parked on the side of the road. That left inadequate room for cyclists. The result was a less than relaxing ride especially with the addition of hills in this area. Hopefully, the riding tomorrow and the next day will be better. We met two Italian cyclists today who were riding from Seattle to San Diego. They spoke very good English but we were a little confused when the told us they were going to stop in Redondo Beach to take a bath! Later we realized they meant bathing  (swimming). In the hiker/biker campsite we met another couple from Italy. The hiker/biker campsite is quite small and crowded since camping options in southern CA are limited along the coast. Another solo cyclist who is camping in the site is a software developer who just left a job in NYC.

Photos for Monday, 8/10

Oxnard to Manhattan Beach, CA

Sunday, 8/9 - 66 miles. Today was an interesting ride. It was  basically flat with a few small hills in the Santa Monica and Malibu areas. At the end of the day we went inland a few miles to a motel in Manhattan Beach and we had a few small steep hills to climb. After Malibu we got onto a bike trail and we ended of riding on several bike trails that took us all the way to Manhattan Beach with only a few breaks where we had to ride on the road for short distances. The areas we went through also varied. In the morning we passed several miltary bases, farmland, wealthy areas with beachfront homes and some much lower socioeconomic areas. After lunch we passed predominantly wealthy beachfront areas. I also saw a lot of nice state beaches although many were small ribbons of sand that were immediately adjacent to the highway so anyone using the beach must have been subjected to significant traffic noise. The bike paths on the beach were enjoyable to ride on although it was rather slow riding due to the sheer number of bikes on the paths. It seemed like the heaviest concentration of bikes was in the Venice Beach area. For dinner tonight Hal convinced me to try an all you can eat Mongolian restaurant which was across the street from the motel. You picked the various food items you wanted and then a chef cooked everything for you on a giant wok - like surface. The food was very good although I am unsure if it was really authentic Mongolian food. One interesting note about the restaurant was that the owner may have been Mongolian but the servers were Chinese and the chefs were Hispanic. At the beginning of the ride this morning I heard a loud banging noise coming from rear wheel after about two miles. I couldn't figure out the source of the noise until I laid the bicycle on its side and spun the rear wheel. A two inch piece of heavy wire was sticking out of my tire and it was hitting my rear fender every time the wheel rotated. Amazingly it did not puncture the tire so once it was pulled out of the tire I was able to continue riding. I was rather surprised I didn't get a flat!

Photos for Sunday, 8/9

Photos for Saturday, 8/8

Oxnard, CA - Rest day at Camp David

Saturday, 8/8 - 0 miles. Today was the 1st real rest day we have taken so far on this trip. Slept late - until 10 am. Did some planning for the last 4 days of riding which included a car rental reservation and buying plane tickets. David and David were their usual wonderful hosts at their Oxnard beach house. Overall, it was a very relaxing day.

Photos for Friday, 8/7

Refugio Beach State park to Oxnard, CA

Friday, 8/7 -  67 miles. Today started out with a front flat tire within the first ten miles. I ran over something (not sure what) which resulted in a one inch cut in the tire sidewall. I patched the inside of the tire with a boot and put a small amount of air in the tube to reduce the pressure on the tire sidewall. After riding to Goleta we ended up on the campus of the University of CA at Santa Barbara. Luckily there were several bike shops near the campus. The 1st shop didn't have a tire that was the right size - my recumbent uses a 20 inch front wheel. The second shop had several 20 inch tires but they were very wide BMX tires. I wasn't sure they would fit my bike without hitting my front fender. Eventually, after some additional looking the shop found a narrower front tire that worked. When I removed the damaged tire I saw the tire patch had cracked so it is likely I would not have gotten much further on the patched tire. This trip has been hard on my equipment. Both my front and rear tires were damaged on this trip and had to be replaced. One of my tent poles has a damaged end. I was able to fix it temporarily and hopefully I can come up with a permanent fix after the trip. Several of the tent floor patches came off. Also, two of the plastic feet on my LuxuryLite cot cracked. For much of today we followed bike paths or a marked bike lane on the road. They were generally well marked although there were a few areas of confusion. In Santa Barbara it was Fiesta Day so we inadvertently ended riding in a parade with lots of horses. We rode at least half the day with Peter who was cycling from Vancouver where he lives to LA. We had met him on the road a few days ago and our paths crossed several times over the past two days. He is a teacher like many of the people we have met riding. We eventually made it to the Davids' beach house in Oxnard where we were treated to a nice dinner.

Santa Maria to Refugio Beach State park, CA

Thursday, 8/6 - 57 miles. We left Santa Maria this morning with the knowledge we had some large climbs on the way to Lompoc followed by a large climb over the coastal range before reaching the ocean. It turned out that the climbs were very gradual so they were not difficult although they did go on for quite some time. Towards the end of the day we had a very long downhill which took us to the end of CA rt 1. We have ridden a substantial amount of rt 1 from where it started in northern CA in Leggett and ended south of Lompoc. After rt 1 ended the downhill run continued on rt 101 to the coast. Much of the downhill was a straight road with good site distances so I was able to coast at about 40 mph for quite a distance. According to my bike computer I hit a top speed of 45.5 mph. We are camping at a state park located right on the beach. The ocean is only about 100 feet from my tent so you can here the continuous sound of the waves. The only downside of this campground is that it is not near anything so we had to buy food earlier in the day in Lompoc. That was a little challenging because we don't have any cooking equipment. One thing I am seeing for the 1st time are what appear to be offshore oil drilling platforms on the horizon in the ocean. The goal tomorrow is to reach Oxnard.

Photos for Thursday, 8/6

Morrow Bay to Santa Maria, CA

Wednesday, 8/5 - 59 miles. Today we had only a few hills. A lot of the riding took us by large range areas where cattle grazed. We also saw more horse farms and several beach resort towns. In the afternoon we passed through farm country. We passed some strawberry fields that seemed to go on forever. It must have been quitting time because farm workers were streaming out of the fields and traffic was bumper to bumper. It is amazing to think that each strawberry was picked by hand. We also passed a large number of squatter camps which looked like small communities of homeless people located behind bushes 10 or 15 yards from the road. We have also found a few homeless people in the hiker/biker campsites over the past few weeks. The state park rangers in the last few campgrounds have been very diligent in checking who is staying in the hiker/biker campsites. You are limited with regard to the number of nights you can camp in the hiker/biker sites so the rangers seem to been checking that homeless people don't stay too long. We camped last night with Tim from Philadelphia who we have ridden and camped with off and on. He rode with us for part of today but he had arranged for a "Warm Showers" host to put him up tonight so we parted after a late morning break. It is possible we will see him at the campground tomorrow night. We are again in an area where both motels and campgrounds are not located in the right places to accommodate a full day of riding so we went off the route to Santa Maria to find a motel. Tomorrow and the next day the route takes us inland over some large climbs. Those should be the last major climbs for the trip.

Photos for Wednesday, 8/5

Photos for Tuesday, 8/4