San Diego

Okay, so before we get too excited about the coast, we must get Team Ontario's dirty little secret out in the open... We make no excuses and will be perfectly honest with all y'all, we did not cycle all the way from New Orleans to San Francisco. And our arrival on the coast was one of the moments when we were assisted by a motorized vehicle.

As we rode away from Margarita's house it seemed forces were at work against us. We were facing a forty mile day with a 4000 foot climb during the last 16 miles and strong headwinds in the forecast. For many of you, these numbers mean nothing, be it because of the imperial-metric conversion or simply because you're not on a bicycle tour. Well, the important thing to keep in mind is that this day was not exactly our idea of a picnic. We got separated navigating around town which took about 30 minutes to sort out then we were forced to take a very bumpy road towards Ocotillo. Once on the bumpy road we were facing the most intense headwinds of the entire trip. Both Marianne and myself were in our easiest gears and going very, very slowly.

After traveling 28 miles out of El Centro, before the massive climb, we stopped at a gas station and were accosted by Sean, who gave me a sticker for my bicycle (which now is proudly displayed on my trailer). Sean and William were traveling to San Diego in a large truck, pulling a large quarter-pipe with which they did BMX bike demonstrations in high schools. Well, as things turn out, our bikes and gear fit pretty nicely into the quarter-pipe and we both fit pretty nicely in the backseat of the truck...need we say more.

Originally, we were going to get dropped off in Jacumba, where we had planned to stay that night. At this point, however, we were about 90 miles from San Diego, had been riding for 7 days straight and decided that this opportunity had likely presented itself for a reason. We rode with the boys all the way to San Diego.


We arrived in San Diego a couple days early so, instead of surprising our pre-arranged hosts, we opted to stay with William for our first night in the city. We enjoyed sushi and a rather petrifying jet ski ride in the bay with him before riding towards Jim and Julie's place on Saturday morning. The coast was a major shock for me with all its stimulation, people, water and joggers!

It was all really rather exciting though. We very much enjoyed our time in San Diego with Julie and Jim. We got to experience Balboa Park, farmers markets, great food and thrift stores (not that we could buy much), more museums than you could shake a stick at and, for Mare, the ZOO !!!



A lovely part of our time in San Diego was all the bike enthusiasm we received from our host. A typical day consisted of a leisurely breakfast at which point Jim would generally stroll in and ask: "Do you guys want to go for a bike ride? There's a really cool (insert really cool thing to bike to here) that I could show you guys." Well, inevitably we would take off and cycle around (Jim, always on a different bicycle) and check out parks, bridges and markets. We left San Diego on a misty morning and Jim lead the way to the boardwalk where we would head towards San Francisco.

"Ladies, go north" he told us. And that's just what we did.