Safely in San Diego

5/20/09 ~ Arriving at LAX after a six hour flight from Baltimore, we took a short flight to San Diego and were picked up by Seth's aunt Dorcas, and drove to her house in San Marcos. We were amazed by the hilly terrain and the immediate hospitality shown by her neighbors. We spent the afternoon unpacking and building our bikes. After a spaghetti dinner, we visited a local bike shop to pick up spare parts such as spokes and tires. The bike workers seemed very amused that we were biking across the US with no previous experience and little knowledge as to our route. As we tried to plan our trek for the next day, we learned from a local that if we go through Joshua Tree as planned, we will face "enough wind to shake a Jeep, a constant uphill, and temperatures exeeding 100 degrees." We are looking forward to that.

5/21/09 ~ This morning we woke up at 5:30 to beat the rush hour traffic, and sped down the six lane Highway 5 to reach Imperial beach, the "launch pad" of our journey. To our surprise, the morning was completely overcast and chilly, which is typical along the coast here. Finding our way to the point where the pacific ocean meets the US-Mexico border, we dipped our wheels in the surf to christen our journey. After the border patrol rudely refused to take our picture, we met local cyclist Omar, who offered to guide us Northward through the first leg to San Diego. One of the few things we learned about him was that he is a back-up celloist in the city's orchestra. The highlight there was Balboa Park, which is filled with cacti, eucaliptus, and all kinds of desert foliage. What should have been a short, semi-easy trek to the UCSD campus turned into a wild goose chase with our first major hills as well as familiarizing ourselves with California's traffic patterns. Although this state's locals are courteous to bikers and generally friendly, they are completely unreliable when it comes to directions. Along the way, the owner of Mission Bike shop tuned all our bikes free of a service charge. After we corrected our route, we took 101 along the coast before heading east back to Dorcas' house. In order to correct the 8 hour absence of food since we began, we found a produce market and ate just bagels and peanut butter for lunch. Eager to experience the famous In-And-Out burger joint, we had dinner out and were not dissapointed with our four orders of "double-double burgers and animalized fries." To conclude our evening we went to Carlsbad beach to see our first and only sunset on the ocean.
You have heard what they say about the Pacific ocean; that it has no memory...however, we have found that what we have experienced here will be unforgettable.