May 14, 2012
Day 6-San Elijo State Park to SD 41mi and Close Enough..Chula Vista: Close Enough
We made it!! Long story to come about being lost and then found.
So we are at the KOA in Chula Vista and have been w/n a few miles of the border so we are done. We will ride back to SD tomorrow or the next day not sure .....there is a pool and hot tub here and we once again are in a Kabin.
It is difficult to go back and talk about the day before. Your emotions about it all change and then it feels like a different experience. But here goes......
San Elijo Park.....We slept really well the ground we were on was a soft, soft grassy area that seemed to be a former mulch area. Soft!...so while we were right next to the street it was a good sleeping night. We also had a view of the ocean as the site in front of us was empty so we could see all the way to the bluff and ocean. We packed up and headed out after charging all our gear in the wash room again.
It wasn't long before we could see the Torrey Pines bluff looming in front of us. It was not actually as difficult or as steep as it looked. Maybe it was just a good day but it didn't seem to bad. It was a full 2mi climb from 0 ft to 610ft!so it was work. In the book it said to be careful of the steep down ...well you don't decend for a full three miles after you top and then it isn't that steep or long. My iPod was on shuffle for my bike ride playlist and it took three songs to get me to the top. The first was Neil Young's 'Down by the River' haunting ditty to get you up a hill.....then I swear Sly and the Family came on with 'Higher' and last but not least my fav Elvin Bishop 'Fooled Around and Fell In Love' and all I could do was smile at the play list and that the best thing to come my way was finding Jack. Someone to do these crazy things with me!
Next....The knee buster that followed can be completely avoided if you do the following. The Cycling the Pacific Coast leads you down Torrey Pines Rd into La Jolla. They tell you to turn Left on Prospect Pl for one block to Virginia......DO NOT DO THIS!!!! it is a one block 16% grade that you can totally avoid by going one or two more stop lights down Torrey Pines Rd turn left and have NO CLIMB. Your knees and lungs will thank you! After this you wind through neighborhoods for several miles. Soon you are in Mission Bay and heading towards downtown.
Everything went well through town and we were heading towards the shipping yards along Harbor Blvd when in the middle of shift changes and afternoon rush hour the road closed due to construction...on top of that there was an accident and cars were backed up for blocks, horns, sirens were all blazing. It was total chaos!!
We too became confused and stopped to purchase a map so that we could get to the KOA. We headed in what we thought was the correct direction however it turned out that we were in the wrong town. Seems there are several little towns one National City and one Chula Vista with 'D' street crossed by 2nd streets that we were looking for. We knew we were in the wrong place as this was a neighborhood with no sign of any camping anywhere. We then called KOA again for directions and we eventually found them...not before Jack was sure that we were not in the right place again...by now we are hot, tired and starting to get cranky. We were so glad to find the camp ground and it just may be one of KOA's largest. Pools, climbing walls, several Kabins and RV sites. The tent camping was expensive $45 -no H/B and felt like camping in a parking lot so we took a Kabin.
The hot tub was great and again we had a good nights sleep. We were exhausted more from the stress of being so lost than from the ride. We decided that the seven miles to the border wouldn't be much different and we were done.
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Today's ride: 41 miles (66 km)
Total: 264 miles (425 km)
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