The Vacation Part 1: Old Town and Paddle Boarding

8/19 - We woke up feeling rested and accomplished. Now it was time to reward ourselves! We decided to go have lunch with Ethan's cousin, Becky, whom I've never met, in Old Town. Ethan ran down to CVS to get breakfast (for some reason our very nice hotel did not serve a complimentary continental breakfast...dumb) and came back with a box of Froot Loops and milk. Perfect!

We ate and got ready then headed to Old Town. (We bought two 3-day passes for the MTS for only $14 each. We figured $28 to get around San Diego for three days was pretty cheap. They were good for both buses and trolleys. Highly recommended. -E) This Old Town was unlike any I had seen and was seriously old. They had managed to preserve and rebuild the town to look as it did when it was founded (I don't know when) by some Spanish people. It was really cool except it was about 1000 degrees in the little shade available. We went in every store or museum that had air conditioning. After a while Ethan decided he wanted to check out the old mission park where the town was officially founded. Unfortunately it was up on a hill. I wasn't too pleased about it. We went anyway and it was really pretty and you could see out into the harbor. There was also a very nice breeze that I took full advantage of.

We walked back down and headed back toward old town to meet Becky for lunch. We met her at a Mexican place called The Alamo. We rarely ever eat "authentic" Mexican food so we didn't really know what to order. It was funny, but we ended up getting taquitos and a regular taco somehow.

The food was great and it was great to finally chat with Becky. She told us about all the great things to do in SD and that the zoo and Seaworld were both worth the money. We were sold. We had to get going even though we probably could have stayed and talked all day. We had tentatively made reservations for stand up paddle boarding (referred to as SUP) not far from Old Town, but we had to take the bus there.

We had called ahead and the guy said he should have two paddle boards for us provided the people who rented them brought them back when they were supposed to. If you rent them in the morning you can bring them back when you want basically and pay for however long you were out. The people he rented them to said they would be back at 3, but there was a chance that they might keep them longer. I guess they decided to keep them longer because when we got there (at 4 pm) he had no boards for us. Poop! I had really wanted to try this out and was super bummed.

The area that we were in, Mission Bay, was riddled with rental places though so we stopped and checked a few out. We stopped in one and the guy there didn't have SUPs but he directed us to a place that did out on this "pier" that was really a peninsula of land. We headed out there and were in luck. They had plenty of boards and rented them out til 7. Hooray! We changed and put our stuff in a locker. Like I said before, Mission Bay is a large bay that's very well protected so it was a great place to try out SUPing. We paddled around and even tried sitting and paddling. We found that pushing our boards together and paddling on our own side was easy so we did that too. We paddled over to a bridge not far away and realized when we got there that there weren't many other SUPers over there. We quickly found out why. There were a ton of boats and water skiers making waves, which is not conducive to SUPing. We decided to head back after taking some pictures and then there were a bunch of boats where we came from going fast and pulling skiers, tubes and wake boarders. We found out that the 5mph speed restriction ended at 5pm. Annoying. Despite the waves we made it back without falling.

We got back on the bus, which took us back to Old Town where we got on the trolley back to downtown. We decided to get pizza to take back to the room. It was delicious. We also got a bunch of candy for dessert, which was also delicious. It was a great first day of vacation and we like SUPing!

Kayaking, SD and the Mexican border

8/18 Day 38 - We woke up and Julie drove us down to the beach not very far from where the kayak place was. Was said goodbye and headed over there. Luckily we were able to grab a spot on their 10am tour. (But they made us pay $40 more even though we had a GroupOn. Bad start. -E) We had to wait a little bit, but we went to Starbucks and got a snack so we didn't mind. When we got back we got our life jackets our helmets. We met up with the other people on the tour and the guide. Since there was an odd number of people and a lot of people she asked if Ethan would be the guest guide and if I would go in a double with her or someone else. Definitely not the ideal situation, but I felt bad so I said yes. I got paired with a Philippino woman who was really funny and Ethan got to wear a special life jacket and no helmet.

We kayaked out to these cliffs and learned about how they were eroding and how all the houses on them would be gone in 50yrs. (Dr. Seuss had a house there and supposedly the fish that he had in all of his stories was the California state fish that is plentiful in this area. -E) We learned a little about the animals that live in the ocean and around there as well as a short history lesson on the area. We also got kayak into one of the caves, however it was very brief because we had a lot of people. After that we went back to shore.

All in all we didn't feel that the kayak tour was worth our money, but we enjoyed it. We would have much rather rented some and did our own tour, but whatever. After that we hopped on a bus back to Julie's, packed our stuff and headed for downtown to our hotel.

We went through Mission Bay, which was really cool and pretty. It's a pretty large bay where people paddle board, kayak, waterski, wakeboard, tube and sail. It's very protected from the ocean so the water is really calm. It wasn't too far to the hotel and the ride was flat. We had to deal with traffic and no bike lane, but it wasn't too bad.

We finally made it to the hotel in downtown. When we went to check in the guy behind the counter couldn't find the reservation. We tried every name we could think of (we were pretty sure he was just a moron and was typing something wrong, but we humored him anyway). I had just spoken with a lady who received our package of clothes like an hour or so before and she confirmed that our reservation was under my name. So I knew he was just dumb. (He looked at us like yeah right can two scrubs on bicycles afford to stay here. Screw you, dude. -E) After a while another lady came up and typed it in and found it right away.

We took all our stuff off our bikes and headed out for the Mexican border. Our original plan was to take a ferry across the bay to Coronado and then head south to Imperial Beach. Julie told us there was a train that takes you back from the border and that sounded much better than biking back. When we got to the ferry the next one didn't leave for 45 minutes so we decided to scrap it.

Eventually we ended up on this road completely dedicated to car sales. Every block had a few dealerships on it. It was called the Mile of Cars. It was strange. After a while I got tired of all the traffic so Ethan found a different route. We were pretty close to the border at this point. After a while the less busy road turned into a totally carless road. I got nervous because we were so close to Mexico and it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, we passed a bunch of horse ranches and then turned back toward the main road. We could see Mexico as well as the giant fence that keeps people out. It was weird. When we started to get closer to the border crossing we noticed a helicopter hovering very close to the ground and were surprised by a 4-wheeler that came out of nowhere and crossed the road in front of us - we presumed they were border patrol. Very Weird.

We eventually ended up at this really nice outlet mall that had all sorts of your average stores. We thought about going to look for flip flops - I lost mine a few days ago- but decided against it. We passed some duty free stores and then came up to the giant gate that separates Mexico and the US. A ton of people were going back into Mexico with all sorts of stuff. We stopped in sight of the "Mexico" sign over the vehicle crossing and snapped a pic. It was very anticlimactic. Oh well! We were done!! Hoooooorayyyy!

We got back on our bikes and headed for the pedestrian overpass to the train station. From behind us I heard someone say my name. Instinctively I turned around and there was the couple we had stayed at Doheny with. Small world. They crossed the border and had a celebratory beer/tequila shots and were also taking the train (or trolley as they call it in SD) back into downtown. We crossed the pedestrian bridge with them to get to train, which you weren't supposed to ride your bike over. The two of them and I walked, while Ethan decided it wasn't a big deal and rode. Well turns out they really don't want you to ride across it because when we got down on the other side two security officers were there waiting. They gave Ethan a hard time about it and threatened to make him go all the way back and walk his bike back over. It was super unnecessary and annoying, but Ethan told him he only biked because it was easier. (And there were like two other people on the overpass so big deal. They were the kind of cops you could tell were bullied in high school. -E) The officer let him go for being honest. After our brush with the "law" we got our tickets and put our bikes on board. It took a solid 35 minutes to get back into town but it was way better than riding back.

We showered and then went out for a celebratory burger and Ethan had a beer. We got a tub of ice cream for desert and went back to the hotel. (I put the tub in the ice container and filled it with ice to keep it cold. Brilliant! -E) We enjoyed our mint chocolate chip ice cream while we relaxed and thought about how awesome we are. 1863.58 miles of biking over 38 days (36 biking days). It felt incredible and very surreal. We thought back on the last month. All the people we met, friends we made, places we stayed, things we saw, & wildlife we encountered added up to one of the most epic adventures ever.

We'll get there fast and then we'll take it slow

8/17 Day 37 - Originally we planned to go only 30ish miles this day and then another 30ish to San Diego the next day as well as bike to the border (and back). The more we thought about it though the less appealing it sounded. Ideally we wanted to get closer to San Diego so we didn't have that many miles to cover on our last day. Pretty much the only way we could do that was to pay for a hotel or try CouchSurfing or WarmShowers. We've known about CouchSurfing for a long time and really never had the opportunity to try it. We had only recently heard about WarmShowers. It's essentially the same as CouchSurfing but it's specifically for bike tourists. Basically people open their homes to travelers (or bikers) to stay on their couch or extra bed and get a hot shower too. We sent out a couple CouchSurfing requests and some WarmShowers requests and crossed our fingers.

(I woke up early to look for some tide pools, but came up empty. I did find a dead leopard shark on shore though and walked the pier to a great view of surfers, gulls, and the sunrise. -E) It was the hottest morning we had thus far and we were not looking forward to riding in the heat. We rode on a really short bike path for a while and then went to McDonalds (2 miles out of our way. -E). We stayed there for a while in the air conditioning. Ethan ended up plugging his phone into an outlet in the ceiling... (I used a dry sack and attached it to a hanging light and put my phone in there so it wasn't just hanging from the cord. Genius! -E) People gave us some interesting looks. After that we headed out. It was a bit hilly getting back on our main path, but wasn't too bad.

The details of the rest of the ride are a bit fuzzy by now, but the highlights included riding on an abandoned stretch of highway 101, passing a nuclear power plant and riding through Camp Pendleton (a very large military base). The stretch of 101 had been left there when they built highway 5. It was really strange, but also pretty nice because it was so wide. It was a section of the bike path that we rode through Camp Pendleton, but it was before the base.

We finally got to the part where the bike path heads into the base and were relieved to hear we could definitely ride through there. (There had been a few signs indicating the camp was closed to cyclists this day, but we decided to check it out because we really didn't like the alternative... riding on Hwy 5. We also passed a sort of shrine to fallen cyclists on the route. It was sad and inspiring at the same time. -E) Sometimes they are doing training or stuff that closes the camp to bikers. If it is closed you have to turn around and ride your bike on the highway. Normally it's illegal to do that, but since there is no other way to get through that area for bikers that section is overlooked when the camp is closed. Luckily it was open and we continued on. We were a little nervous going through because we weren't sure what to expect. We ran into a guy on his bike though that seemed to take an interest in what we were doing. He had biked through there many times so he led us most of the way. He also told us a bunch of stories about what they do on the base and the encounters he has had with the people there. It was interesting.

We got to a part that we had heard about where you have to show then your ID. No big deal. Ethan showed his, but I was too slow to get my ID out I guess because the guy told me to just go through. Okie dokie. :] It was really hot riding through there and I saw a baby rattle snake so we were really glad when we got out of there.

By this time we had heard back from a lady on WarmShowers who said she could host us. Woohoo! We were to meet her at a pub in La Jolla and then we would all ride to her house. We were super relieved. The only other notable thing that happened was we rode up this huge, stupid hill to get up to La Jolla and we stopped at Torrey Pines Golf Course. It was cool I suppose. It wasn't much farther to the pub after that.

We walked in and had no idea what Julie looked like only that she was wearing a blue shirt. We walked around and didn't think we saw her. Finally we hear Ethan's name and there she was. We walked right past her somehow. We chatted with her and her friend (can't remember his name), Ethan joined the two of them and had some beer and we got some food. We learned that she was from MI (Detroit suburbs), she likes swimming, biking, surfing and craft beer. She also started a website called PubQuest. It maps all the microbreweries in the country. She likes to bike tour to different breweries. Ethan loved the idea. After a while her friend left (and then texted her that he didn't think we were serial killers) and we left a little after that.

It was another 8 miles to her house in Pacific Beach and we decided to take the scenic route. It was pretty hilly at first and I, of course, was on the struggle bus. Anyway, we finally made it, then we showered and went out to dinner. We randomly ran into some friends of hers too. They were really nice.

We had bought a groupon for kayaking in La Jolla so we decided that Julie would drive us out there in the morning and if we got to kayak we could take the bus back and if not we could maybe catch a ride back to her place with her. She was going swimming with a friend nearby.

We went to bed hopeful that we could kayak in the morning...

Orange County

8/16 Day 36 - We woke up and took our time packing up. My Uncle Bob had just landed in LA so they stopped by to see us off. It was great to see him. :] We left at about 11.

We rode through cities literally the entire day, which is good and bad. It's good because the miles go pretty fast, but bad because some towns (mainly Laguna Beach) are not bike friendly. People are parked on the side of the road with two lanes of traffic and no bike lane. Very stressful.

We stopped in Long Beach for lunch at Panda Express. Our next stop was Huntington Beach (Surf City, USA) where I saw a dolphin. We thought about checking out Balboa Island, but decided not to. We just rode down by the harbor instead. (There were some amazing houses up on a cliff/hill that all seemed to have infinity pools/hot tubs. One house had the entire slope covered with solar panels. Neat. -E) After that we stopped at Ralph's in Dana Point for dinner food and the campground was less than a mile from there. It was pretty flat most of the way except going through Laguna. It was also really hot, but like I said the miles went by fast so it wasn't too bad.

The campground was nice, but the hiker/biker site was really small and behind the bathroom again. There were only two other people there so we ended up having plenty of room. They actually have been riding the same route as us, but we found out we have been a couple days ahead or behind them the whole time. They knew Josh and Frank and had stayed at the same place as us in Monterey. It was really strange that we only ran into them once, but also kinda cool.

We didn't sleep very well because it was hot and we were really close to a train track that was very busy. At times it sounded like the trains were derailing and coming right for us. Not cool.

R & R

8/14-15 Days 34 & 35 - We got a great night's sleep at Chelsea's and woke up feeling refreshed and a little sore. Our plans for this day included breakfast, REI, lunch and the Griffith Observatory. It took us a while to get going so our breakfast kind of turned in to brunch at Johnny Rockets (there was a groupon for it .. Don't judge us!). We went to REI and Ethan finally found this packable daypack he'd been looking for since we left Chicago. Hooray! He returned the bag he had got instead and bought the daypack. Success! After that we headed to the observatory.

The observatory was packed with tourists, which is always annoying, but it was actually really cool. It's basically a mini-museum about astronomy as well as an educational tour type thing. You could also go out onto the roof and into two telescope towers they have. We are completely fascinated by space so we really liked it. We hung out on the roof looking over the skyline and up at the Hollywood sign. It's so much smaller in real life.

After we left the observatory we decided we needed a closer look at the Hollywood sign. Ethan found a place that got you as close as possible, but it took us through some of the most winding and steep roads I've ever seen. It made me seriously car sick. When wevgot there there was an ice cream truck so naturally we got a drumstick chocolate cone. We took a couple pics and noticed that there were several news vans there. We decided it was nothing, although we did see some helicopters over the area from the observatory, which we thought might be strange.

Anyway, after we left there Ethan really wanted to go to Coney Dog. It's a coney dog restaurant owned by some famous people from Detroit or with special ties to it. (KRIS DRAPER, Braylon Edwards, and Tim Allen are all part owners. -E) It was pretty neat. They had a bunch of Red Wings posters and old pics of Detroit. Ethan got some coney dogs and I got cheese fries. They were OK. After that we needed to get gas and then we were going to the airport to pick up Ali (my sister).

After getting gas and Ali we headed back to Hermosa beach for Taco Tuesday. We met Chelsea and Ali's friend Kyle there. We hung out for a while eating tacos and drinking beer (I didn't have any beer). After that we went to a place close by that was a bit quieter and they also happened to have a ping pong table. We played best of three and eventually were joined by this strange but cool guy from Ghana. He kept score for us and then played Ethan and was actually kinda good. (I won though. -E) It was awkward, but we had a good time.

The next morning we got bagels with Ali and then went to Target for some food and other random things. We also had to get Caladryl for Ethan because we're pretty sure he has poison oak or something similar. It's pretty gross and not comfy for him :[. After that we got Chick-fil-a because it's delicious. (And some YogurtLand, which is almost equally delicious. Why can't they have those in Michigan? -E)

Once we were filled up on chicken and frozen yogurt, we went to the beach and chilled for a while. It was the first time we had been to the beach to enjoy the sunshine. It was great. :] When we'd had our full of the beach we headed back to Ali's apartment, which is like 100 yards from the beach. We chilled there for a while then went back to Chelsea's for dinner. Again, the food was awesome and it was great hanging out with the fam! We stayed up watching shark week for a while followed by Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman - great show... if you like listening to Morgan Freeman talk about things beyond your comprehension.

The City of Angels

8/13 Day 33 - Our plan to wake up at the butt crack of dawn worked somehow even though we didn't set an alarm. I woke up just before the sun rose and we decided to get on the road. Again, our first goal was Mcdonalds. We did the fastest packing job ever and headed out.

On the way we passed a US Naval Base and all the guys were out running & singing. It was kinda cool to see in real life. We got to Mickey D's and decided we had plenty of time to chill. We found a plug and got some sausage McMuffins.

After hanging out there for a while we decided it was time to go. We headed out to our next stop, which was a state park outside of Malibu. It was pretty flat most of the way, which was nice because it was really hot. Then when we got closer to the park it started to get a bit hilly. They weren't big hills but I was annoyed. We finally got to the park and it looked like it was down a big hill. Not going in there. So we kept on but I had to pee really bad. We stopped at the first gas station we came to in Malibu. There were "no public restroom" signs all over so I made Ethan get a snickers so we could use the potty. After that we continued through Malibu. It was really pretty, but it didn't look like they make it look on TV. Anyway, we passed some ridiculously big and beautiful houses and saw some even more ridiculous cars.

We stopped at a city park just outside Pepperdine University. It was the nicest park ever. We filled up our water bottles, made PBJs and watched some kids play laser tag. After lunch we headed out. Our next break would be Santa Monica. Eventually we got to a sign denoting the LA city limit and population of over 3 million. Cool. We continued riding and kept going past Santa Monica. We were on the bike path and just wanted to get there so we didn't take a break. We got to Venice and knew it right away. There were all sorts of people hanging out, rollerblading and being weird. Again, wasn't how I pictured it, but it was cool.

As we were riding through Venice Ethan spotted our friend Molly. This is crazy! She had said she would be in that area that day, but we had no idea when or where she'd be. We stopped and chatted with her for a minute and then decided to take a snack break with her and her friends.

After our break we only had a few miles to go to get to Redondo Beach where Chelsea (my cousin) lives and works. We were headed to her office to get her house key and then over to her house for a much needed shower. We continued riding on the bike path and it took us around Marina Del Ray where we saw some super cool boats and then back to the beach. We got to Chelsea's work at about 4:30 then headed to her house.

We showered and later had dinner with Chelsea, Huy, Aunt Terry and Uncle Dave. The food was great and the company was even better. :]

The flat tire day

8/12 Day 32 (Second Half) - After we had everything taken care of at McDonalds we headed for Santa Barbara.

We stopped first at Old Mission Santa Barbara. It's this big mission that sits up on a hill overlooking the town. It was really pretty, but the tours were $5 so we skipped the tour and just hung out outside. (Skye talked to Nonnie on the phone for a solid 30 mins here. It was a much needed break in the shade. -Ethan) After that we went to the courthouse which was built a very long time ago (not sure of the exact year, look it up if you want to know). Anyway, they still use the courthouse for normal courthouse stuff but the public is allowed to tour through most of it. There is also a tower that you're allowed to tour as well. We decided to check out the tower. It was pretty cool and you could see almost all of Santa Barbara.

After we left the courthouse we stopped briefly at an old fort, not sure what it was called (El Presidio -E) but I was done looking at old stuff by then so we just looked for a minute. After that we headed to REI for some needed equipment replacements. They pretty much let you take anything back there if you're dissatisfied so we returned my Camelbak and got a new one in purple. We also returned our sporks that broke a few days ago for new ones and bought two new tubes in case we have any more flat tires. Fingers crossed that doesn't happen again. I think Ethan would lose it. :]

We left Santa Barbara and still had about 30 more miles. We biked through a couple towns and finally came to this bike path Ethan wanted to take. When we got to it we realized it wasn't paved. Usually we don't mess with unpaved paths because they're difficult to ride on with heavy bikes. But this one seemed really compacted and not too bumpy so we decided to take it anyway. Wrong choice. It ended up being super bumpy and it sucked. We even had to take our bikes over train tracks. I was not happy. It finally smoothed out near the end, but we were still happy to be off of it when it finally did end.

We eventually had to get back on HWY 1 which always sucks, but the shoulder was good the whole way so that makes us feel better. At one point the highway is squeezed between the ocean and the mountains and there is actually a bike lane on it. It was pretty neat and really pretty.

We decided that since we wouldn't need dinner food the next day to just eat out before we got to the campground. We found a place that had pizza a few miles before the campground in Ventura. After we ate we went to the grocery store for some Oreos then biked a little less than 3 miles to McGrath State Beach. There was only one other biker there (we didn't catch his name). He had been riding for 7 months. Wow! That's a long time. We talked to him for a while and then set up camp. It was a pretty uneventful night. We went to bed super early so we could get up at the butt crack of dawn and get on our way to LA.