This morning we were in no rush to get started. Having climbed out of the desert the temperatures wouldn’t be reaching almost a hundred anymore and the change of scenery from desert shrubberies was most welcome. It was to be about twenty miles of hills before a long downhill towards the ocean. After slowly packing up camp, pumping my tires, and grabbing some water we hit the road.
The first few hills were followed by a decent climb of about a thousand feet. I approached it thinking that it would be difficult after the long day yesterday, but it was over very quickly. In fact, Jon took a wrong turn and kept on going uphill, thinking there was more climbing to be done. I was chasing him, trying to tell him to turn around, but he figured it out before I caught up.
We took a quick break and then proceeded onto the long descent. Just a few minutes in we were greeted by a thick fog. It was a lot of fun cycling through it and luckily we had a wide shoulder so there was little danger of being hit. We raced downhill towards the town of Alpine for lunch as the fog turned to a light rain.
A quick meal later and we began suiting up as the rain had increased in intensity and the temperature seemed to have dropped. I bundled up in most of my remaining warm clothes and we continued downhill. We were now entering the suburbs of San Diego and the map route had us take many turns to stay on roads with bike lanes as we sped down towards the ocean.
The route was pretty scenic and took us through a nice park with steep hills on both sides before dumping us onto a main drag that ran towards the coast. Not many pictures from this timeframe due to the rain, but it did let up as we approached the end.
Riding past Sea World we took a wrong turn and went about a mile out of the way but managed to turn around and get back on track. In the final stretch it was Andrew and I racing down a bumpy pedestrian filled bike path to Ocean Beach. We ran our bikes onto the beach, stripped off our clothes, and jumped in the water. We had arrived.
Jon and Liz joined us in the ocean and we got some photos before finding a motel, having a nice victory dinner, and hanging around celebrating.
It’s crazy to think this touring lifestyle will be coming to a conclusion. It has been an amazing journey and even though I had been ready to finish since the Rockies, It’s now sad to see it end. I still have to make my way north to Anaheim next week before flying home on the 24th.
Stick around for updates for the coming week (perhaps not daily) followed by a post-mortem of the trip including a much more comprehensive photo gallery.
Today’s mileage: 75 miles.
Total: 3811 miles.
What an accomplishment! And it is especially great that you were able to celebrate it with new friends. You might want to reread the final few pages of ZatAoMM.
congrats!
^ that was me (I’m tired)
I’ve been lurking, reading by RSS and occasionally showing off your pictures to coworkers. However, I have to post now. Just have to.
Congratulations!
Looking forward to the post-mortem notes and galleries.
Thank you for making so much of this public. I’ve loved reading along.
Fantastic accomplishment — glad weather was good for leaping in the Pacific to celebrate arrival!!! YAY GALEN!
Congratulations Galen.
Looking forward to seeing the larger photo gallery
There isn’t much to be said that hasn’t been said already. It was an honor to ride the last three days of our separate journeys together, and I hope it isn’t raining on you in Oceanside or wherever you are now. Godspeed up to Anaheim and back to D.C.; I expect that front porch of a bed if I ever make it up there. Congratulations bro.
I’ve been following you this whole time. Literally. I’ve been trailing you and camping near you and imagining the whole time that you and I are best friends and we were on this journey together! Oh what fun we would have riding our bikes!
For reals though. You’ve been an inspiration. Thanks for this.