End of West Coast Bike Ride, 2023

After 33 days of cycling 1,666.48 miles, one flat tire, three ferry rides, and over 90,000 cumulative feet of hill climbing, the 2023 West Coast Bike Ride came to an end. As with any great adventure, flexibility is key when facing the many unknowns that are part of such an endeavor.  For example, the long-

planned end point of the ride was Friendship Park south of San Diego. The metal border fence of the U.S. – Mexican border frames the southern edge of the park. Helen, driving the Prius ahead of Jay, arrived at Friendship Park and sent a text message to Jay, “Park closed. Sewer line break.” It was a mess.

We made a quick adjustment to meet three miles up the road at Southwest High School. Little did we know that Jay would be arriving when the high school and a nearby elementary school were discharging their students at the end of the school day. 

Helen still had hope for great “end of ride fanfare.” She purchased a strand of purple crape paper that she envisioned as finish line tape Jay would then triumphally ride through, hands raised in victory. But it was not to be. So many cars were leaving the parking lot there was no way to put the crepe paper ribbon across the driveway. Despite the lack of theatrical drama, this epic bike ride finished with a sense of accomplishment and joy.

Support and Gear (SAG) Support

This adventure was also a huge logistical challenge. As Jay cycled, Helen drove the Prius loaded with our luggage and camping equipment. She also shopped for food, did laundry, and, most importantly, found a campsite or hotel for our evening stay. This last effort proved to be quite difficult in the initial phase of our trip since we were traveling during high vacation season. More than once Helen secured the last available campsite or found a hotel room among a sea of “no vacancy” signs. 

Arriving first at the day’s end location, she set up the tent and other camp equipment or got our luggage out of the car into our hotel room. Helen really made this adventure possible.

The Home Stretch

After leaving the LA area and our old Atlanta friends Mark and Mary, only 200 miles and four days remained on our epic West Coast ride. 

Torrance

Jay was now out the mountains riding mostly beach bikeways past notable sites like Muscle Beach in Venice, CA. Our next stop was Torrance where Jay lived for four years during one of his consulting gigs. His hotel was attached to the Chart House, an upscale beach front restaurant, where Helen and Jay dined during their courtship 20 years ago. We returned to the Chart House and had a wonderful dinner at a table overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Laguna Beach

Continuing south, Jay had to navigate around the busy Long Beach port on obscure bike paths and well-appointed marina promenades. In Laguna Beach, we had lunch at Zinc Café, recommended by Bryn, Jay’s old college friend who grew up in Laguna Beach. We also found ourselves for the first time being stumped on where to spend the evening. The nearby Hyatt would have been nice, but we were looking for something under $500. We drove eight miles inland and found a reasonably priced Marriott property.

Encinitas

Today’s ride was an odd mixture. Jay rode over rolling hills on the back streets of San Clemente, over long deserted stretches on the “old” Pacific Coast Highway and navigated an overgrown bike path on the Camp Pendelton Marine Corps base. The next eight miles was a scary stretch of Interstate 5. Local cyclists confirmed I-5 was the only and allowable option to Oceanside. With a steady stream of traffic zipping by at 65 – 70 mph, the ride on the shoulder of I-5 was LOUD. Fortunately, it was a quick ride and ended safely.

San Diego, Last Day

It was hard to believe the last ride day had arrived. This was another day of mixed riding. After passing the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Jay bounced along on the rutted roads of La Jolla before picking up a beach bike path that he rode down to Mission Beach to a promenade-like bike path past the San Diego airport. The San Diego Bay was crossed by a 25-minute ferry from the downtown Convention Center to Coronado Ferry Center. Ten miles later this bike ride ended.

After checking into our hotel, we drove to the home of our old Atlanta friend Brandon who lives with his partner Kim, their daughter Zoey and Brandon’s mom Jewel. We popped a bottle of champaign to celebrate this great effort.  

Last Thoughts

An effort as arduous as this ride does not end with the last pedal stroke. Time is needed to decompress. Staying on your “A” game every day requires full concentration. Since our “home” moves every night, each night we were required to search for a “new” home. The same effort went into finding food and other supplies. Fortunately, this time of year is pretty dry, but weather and wind direction checks were still required. 

Whenever Jay mounted his bike, he switched into full alert mode whether on high-speed highways, back roads or bike paths. Oddly, coasting downhill required the greatest concentration. Downhill speeds that could easily reach 25 – 35 mph required Jay to continually tap his brakes and remain hyper vigilant to avoid road debris or large road cracks. Riding up tens of thousands of feet also meant riding down tens of thousands of feet. 

Sharing roads with cars, pickup trucks, RVs, and semi-rigs has its own risks. Most gave Jay a wide berth, but some simply scared the “spokes” out of him. Bike paths have their own growing menace with the increasing presence of irresponsible e-bike riders zooming along full throttle at 20+ mph.  

We are now driving back to our home in the Atlanta area. After three to four days of unhurried driving, we have decompressed and are beginning to reflect on just what an epic adventure we had.

A great deal of riding was down on the Pacific Coast Highway.

Beach bike path near Santa Monica, CA

Toward the end of the ride, Jay was riding on beach front bike paths.

Riding down Interstate 5 in California.

Jay at the end of the bike ride.

Oh yeah, we had one flat tire on the Prius. Fortunately, we were parked at a motel and there was a tire store right next to the motel. Jay walked over, talked to the guys who took care of us, and we were off for $19 in less than an hour.

We stopped in Tombstone, AZ to watch a reenactment of the gun fight at the OK Corral. What fun! Audience participation (cheer for the heroes and boo for the bad guys) added to the enjoyment. 

In keeping with visiting "The World's Largest, Biggest Whatever," we stopped in PistachioLand near Alamogordo, NM to see the World's Largest Statue of a Pistachio, which is 30 feet high. We took a guided tour of their nut orchards and vineyards. Highly recommended.

We stopped briefly at White Sands National Monument Visitor Center near Alamogordo, NM but didn't take the time to go way back into the area that contains the shifting white sands. 

We spent a night in Roswell, NM. Of course, you can't go to Roswell, NM and not go to the International UFO Museum and Research Center. (Jay said it should be the Intergalactic UFO Museum). It was very well done and gave a lot of credence to the argument that it's true.

We decided to take Route 40 East to go home. The old Route 66 is the current Route 40. 

Another stop was Amarillo, Texas. We visited Cadillac Ranch, a place in the middle of a field where 10 Cadillacs are half-buried front-side down. People are encouraged to bring paint and add a layer. Of course, Jay needed to participate in the ritual! 

We drove 15 miles out of our way to visit the Museum of Osteology, and boy, are we glad we did! It is unique (the only bone museum in the US) and fascinating! There are skeletons large and small; hanging in the main hall is a 40-foot skeleton of a whale and the standing 19-foot tall skeleton of a giraffe. In the bird section, there is the skeleton of a hummingbird that appears to be the smallest skeleton there; less than one inch long. There is a fabulous video showing the process of how the bones are cleaned, bleached white then wired together. This is a must-see if you're ever in Oklahoma City, OK! The large snake skeleton above is from an anaconda. 

Display of human skulls and skeletons. 

High Spots in L.A.

In our last blog we were in Santa Barbara. Well, we haven’t really travelled much further south on our trek to the U.S. – Mexican border. From Santa Barbara, Jay cycled along bike paths following the contours of busy US-101 and the rather lazy Pacific Coast Highway that hugged the shoreline. Jay was not the only one soaking in the rays along the shoreline. This was Labor Day weekend and the beaches were crowded with holiday sunbathers and a seemingly endless population of surfers bobbing in the gentle sea swells waiting to catch that perfect wave.

Jay continued riding until he reached a park next to the Naval Air Station at Point Mugu near Oxnard, CA. Known as the Missile Park, the small park contains three formerly state-of-the-art aircraft and a collection of missiles and other aviation armament. The park was selected as the end point of the  ride since we planned to spend time with old Atlanta friends, Mark and Mary. They moved to Sherman Oaks (near LA) a year and a half ago.

Time with our dear friends in their absolutely fabulous home was filled with great conversations, visits with their adult kids and two cute-as-buttons animated grandchildren. 

Getty Museum

Our visit was also an excuse to visit the nearby J. Paul Getty Museum in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Commonly known as “the Getty,” the building, grounds and museum are sprawling. We were very fortunate to join a museum tour that started shortly after our arrival. Our docent took us to several galleries and spent time explaining in detail just one item in each gallery. The most impressive piece was a marble bust of Pope Paul V carved by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1621, valued at over $33 million. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens

The next day we toured the desert and Chinese gardens at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino. The Huntington is a large complex of gardens, libraries, and archives from the estate of Henry and Arabella Huntington. It contains the second largest collection of books in the world (including many old and rare books including a Gutenberg Bible) after the Library of Congress.

Again, we joined a two hour tour that explored the Desert Garden. After lunch in their café, we wandered through the Chinese garden and admired the beautiful architecture, water lilies and exquisite walkways.

Crack

We shared in our last blog our “snap” incident when Jay’s shifting cable broke. Today we are reporting our “crack” incident. Thursday morning we discovered a large crack in the windshield of our Prius. After many miles traveled, the windshield endured two tiny stone chips that we had patched. Today’s long crack transversed a curving path toward the driver’s side and could not be ignored. On inspection, we found a sharp ding near the top of the crack. With Mark and Mary’s help we identified a nearby auto glass repair shop, filed an insurance claim, and had the repairs completed by early afternoon. Whew! Another bullet dodged.

Back on the Road

After breakfast with Mark and Mary, we mounted the bike on the Prius and returned to the Missile Park so Jay could resume riding today (Friday, September 8). We now have only 150 miles remaining on this adventure.  

There are hundreds of varieties of cacti from all over the world in the desert section at the Huntington Botanical Gardens.

 Surprisingly, there is something in bloom almost all year at the Huntington.

               

                    The Getty has outdoor sculpture that quickly gets visitors' attention!

There are a number of famous paintings at the Getty. Irises (1889) by Vincent van Gogh is one of them.

The Chinese Garden at the Huntington Botanical Gardens was full of Chinese architecture, unlike the desert garden, which had none.

The paths and floors in the Chinese garden were made of beautifully crafted small stones. There weren't any signs that said so, but they looked as if they had been fashioned by hand.

                                                  Bike path along US 101.

 

 Dinner with Mark and Mary and their son Matt on our last evening with them.

 

Jay with his bike at Missile Park.

On his ride to Torrance, Jay was able to ride on miles of beach bike paths. This bike path includes a welcome sign to Santa Monica.

Busy Venice Beach.

 

Friends, Big Sur and a Castle

We are now in Santa Barbara, which is the beginning of the end of our long West Coast adventure. Jay has cycled 1,415 miles. There are just 250 miles before reaching our end point at the U.S. – Mexican border just across from Tijuana. As we have shared, this trip is an adventure that just happens to include a bike ride. Last week was no exception.

After leaving Dianne, a new Unitarian Universalist (UU) friend in Half Moon Bay who hosted us for an evening, Jay continued cycling south to Monterey. There we again were hosted by a UU couple, Laura and Harry, whom Jay met through the Fifth Principle Project.

An Odd Mixture of Environments

Jay’s cycling in this part of California continues to be an odd mixture of environments. From Half Moon Bay, he rode through broad swaths of barren hills of sun-dried grasses until arriving in Santa Cruz where he was greeted by sandy beaches dotted with sun-worshippers lounging, playing volleyball, or surfing. Thankfully cell coverage is now better so Helen can track Jay on her Life360 app. As Jay entered a traffic circle opposite the Santa Cruz pier, Helen texted him, “Stop! I’ll be right there.” Jay stopped and seconds later Helen emerged from a restaurant 10 feet away. We walked 100 steps to our hotel.

In the evening we walked the long Santa Cruz pier, past an assortment of restaurants and gifts shops serenaded by sea lions who cluster below the pier and find ample reason to bark the night away.

The next morning Jay’s cycling started with riding along the now-empty sandy beaches before transitioning to the agriculture heartland of this part of California. His biking software diverts him off CA-1, a busy traffic artery that sometimes prohibits pedestrians and cyclists. These farm to market roads are not built for comfort. The road surface is jarring as is coming face-to-face with the first step in the process that provides us fresh produce; a process we normally only see at its final conclusion, as neat displays of strawberries, lettuce, broccoli and artichokes in grocery stores.

On a farm to market road, one sees boundless acres of crops expanding to the horizon and the human endeavor of hundreds of individuals in each field laboring to remove crops from the ground for our eventual consumption. No words or photos can capture the expanse of this effort. We will find it hard next time we are at our local Kroger to bemoan the cost of a quart of strawberries.

Monterey

In Monterey, we spent two days with Laura and Harry. They were hosts extraordinaire. On the first evening, two other UUs, Brian and Anne, were invited to dinner that started with cocktails and appetizers on the back deck, then dinner accompanied by local California wine. We are having too much fun, but we don’t intend to put any of it back.

The two days’ stay in Monterey was planned to allow Jay to ride down toward Big Sur and then be retrieved by Helen at the end of the day. Landslides blocked the lower portion of this part of CA-1. A bicycle ride south then being picked up by car to ride out was the only option if Jay wanted to ride any portion of the road around Big Sur.

Big Sur

Big Sur is the most notable portion of the coastal road that Jay cycled. Big Sur is marked by a long meandering two-mile climb. However, the Big Sur coastal ride is a constant cycle of climbing and descending. Jay spent 2:45 hours climbing and 1:17 descending. When Helen found Jay sweating four miles from today’s endpoint, Jay declared, “Close enough.”

Hearst Castle

We mounted the bike on the back of the Prius and left Monterey and our wonderful hosts, Laura and Harry, and drove a 150-mile detour around the Big Sur road closure to Cambria. The day was young, so we visited Hearst Castle just 12 miles up the road.

William Randoph Hearst inherited his father’s mining fortune, parlayed that fortune into another fortune in the media industry, and built his extravagant home on the top of a steep cliff in San Simeon. The Grand Rooms tour cost $30.00 a ticket, but the price was worth it to see Hearst’s opulent excesses.

The three “guest cottages” on the mountain top were each larger than our home in Roswell. There are 38 bedrooms in the main house. The 104 ft. long pool and terraces were works of art. The main dining hall sat 40-50 people, which Hearst entertained most weekends. The tour guide provided a very compelling narrative of Hearst’s desire to build a Mediterranean castle that he had seen as a child. Left out was any discussion of Hearst’s “yellow” journalistic tendency, flirtation with Hitler’s Nazis, and his eventual bankruptcy. Heck, if you are paying $30 a pop, let’s have a “good story.” We really enjoyed our visit to La Cuesta Encantada, The Enchanted Hill.

Back on the Road

We left Cambria and Jay continued riding among barren hills of dried grass and farmland. There was an abrupt change in the terrain at the end of his ride as he entered Pismo Beach on his way to our hotel in Arroyo Grande. The hardscrabble landscape turned into a well-manicured environment where the trees of the “well-off” crowd are fashionably topiary.  

We ended Saturday of Labor Day weekend in Lompoc at a comfortable Best Western hotel, then Jay started pedaling on to Santa Barbara on Sunday morning.

Snap

The 55-mile ride from Lompoc to Santa Barbara marked the end of the mountainous terrain that Jay has been cycling since he left Vancouver, BC on July 27. The last major climb was at the end of a long 20-mile gradual climb. As Jay approached the last half mile in his summit attack…snap! It was a subtle sound, but quickly recognized as the cable to Jay’s rear derailleur snapping. With a broken shifting cable, Jay lost access to his rear gears that gave him a mechanical edge in his daunting climbs. He could now only shift the two gears of his front chain ring. Basically, Jay could ride fast or faster.

With his limited shifting, he pushed over the last summit and then began the 35-mile ride on the relatively flat terrain to Santa Barbara. The big question was how to get the bike fixed. It was the Sunday of the Labor Day weekend.

Jay alerted Helen of his bike’s mechanical failure. As he pulled into the parking lot of our hotel, Helen shared she had found an open nearby bike shop. We drove over to Open Air Bicycles. The bike mechanic installed a new cable.  We are now ready to complete the last section of our West Coast adventure.

 

The indoor swimming pool had a diving balcony that made the diver the center of attention.

The main dining room had several 300+ year old tapestries hanging on the walls. Hearst sat in the middle of this table with this tapestry behind him. No tablecloths or cloth napkins; they used paper napkins. No flower arrangements; ketchup and mustard were the table decorations. 

This was one of the guest houses. Each one had a grand entrance, like this one. There was a total of 20 bedrooms in the three guest houses.

The outdoor swimming pool was redone several times, each time enlarging it and creating more grandeur and opulence. The final version is 104 feet wide and surrounded by marble pillars to mimic a Greek setting.  

The grounds are filled with statues and bas relief, many in this mode. One imported statue is over 3,000 years old, and several others are over 400 years old. Everyone is instructed not to touch anything except the handrails! 

Santa Cruz pier in the evening.

Strawberry fields with boxes ready to fill.

Signage showing closures of town on this section of Big Sur.

Views from the Big Sur coast.

More views from the Big Sur coast.

Cloudy day of riding in farmland.