Over the past few days we’ve ridden from the LA area down to San Diego. It was amazing to arrive and look back at how far we’ve come! About 5500 miles so far, and so, so many stories.
Our route from Anchorage, AK to San Diego, CA. 5500 miles and counting!
For those of you in State College, we’ll be telling a few of these stories at two different presentations about our trip. The first will be for the Statistics Department at 3:30 on Tuesday, Sept 23. The second will be at Appalachian Outdoors at 7:00 on Thursday, Sept 25. Hope to see you there!
Ballona Creek bikeway. Mostly a gravel bottom cement-sided tidal pool. However, life abounds!
The ride out of the Los Angeles area was long, but much better than I anticipated. Our route took us on many different bike paths along the beach and tidal waterways. At one point the path even went through a hotel parking garage! And of course we rode on many different roads, from neighborhood roads to many-lane boulevards.
The bike path enters a hotel parking garage.
Our first night out we stayed at Doheny State Beach, which had a tiny hiker/biker campsite area. There was one other cyclist there, who happened to also be on a Pan-American trip! Ryan has come from Vancouver and we expect to run into him again somewhere in Central America.
Hiker/Biker site at Doheny State Beach
The old Pacific Coast Highway
Snack time!
The next day we spent some time on the old Pacific Coast Highway. It is now only used by cyclists – and we certainly saw a lot of day riders! In the afternoon we rolled through Camp Pendleton. I have been collecting animal, and other, crossing signs and I added a really unique one to my collection: “AAV/Tank Crossing”!
We spent the night with some great Warmshowers hosts, and got to sleep in a treehouse! Our host, Steve, cooked us a delicious taco salad for dinner and homemade hot fudge sauce on ice cream for dessert. We definitely didn’t go away hungry!
A treehouse – our room for the night.
Many-laned roads on the way into San Diego. The traffic came in waves due to the lights.
The next day’s ride into San Diego was another half day (34 miles). We spent it riding along the ocean, and then cut east into San Diego. Some of the roads were busy, but we almost always had a bike lane. Somehow we managed to make 6 different left turns to make it to Matt and Kira’s house. That was pretty exciting, considering the number of traffic lanes. Since we arrived during the workday, the welcome committee consisted of two very happy dogs: Indy and Guinness.
Indy gives Daisy some love
The pile of packages waiting for us in San Diego. We now have maps for Central America!
It is funny to think we could be in Mexico TODAY! However, we’ve a few things to do first, mainly Daisy defending her dissertation. (Yay!) We’ll be travelling by plane to the east coast for a week. Before that trip, we’ll be doing a several day loop around the mountains near San Diego. When we get back, Daisy’s parents will visit with us in San Diego for a few days. We’ll get beefier tires on the bikes, and set off further south!
Although we saw many surfers, this was the only surfer crossing sign.