La Jolla to Friendship Park, CA


It’s kind of hard to believe, but after 39 biking days, we’re all done. We’ve biked the Pacific Coast, from Vancouver to the Mexican border. Today’s final ride was a nice finisher, after the less pleasant days through LA.

The morning started with a tour of the UC San Diego campus. As it’s a Saturday in the summer during a holiday weekend, it was pretty dead. After a short climb, we got to burn off the altitude we built up yesterday. The switchbacks kept us from enjoying it too much.

We rode along the shore in La Jolla. Other than a stretch on Coast Boulevard where people were trying to find parking, there wasn’t a lot of traffic to distract us from the expensive-looking housing.

We decided to skip the beach in Pacific Beach and stay on Mission Boulevard. We’ve had plenty of beach paths. When the road got narrow enough we would have needed the lane, we have in and went to the beach. As expected, it was crowded and hard to get through at any speed. At least we got off right before it got packed.

We missed our turn onto Nimitz, and traffic made turning around tough. But we found a playground in Dusty Rhodes Park for lunch. Planes taking off from the airport provided noisy entertainment.

Getting back on course, Nimitz was like an expressway, divided with exits, but surprising little traffic, compared to the streets before. It took us to Harbor Drive, which ran past the airport, then the harbor. We took a parallel multiuse trail for part of it, but skipped over to the road when it got narrow.

Harbor Drive was really nice. It took us past the Midway, Star of India, and other neat waterfront attractions. Then it turned east to ride among the skyscrapers of downtown. Finally, it went through a rail yard, port, and naval base. Somehow, traffic stayed light. All cities should be this nice.

We cut off through a bit more warehousey area and got on the Bayshore Bikeway. This switched between streets and dedicated path (my favorite was built right over an abandoned parking lot). It was an interesting and well maintained way to get south of town.

The Bikeway spit us out on city streets with just a few miles to go to Friendship Park, where my brother and parents would be picking us up. As we got closer, it got more and more rural.

The final stretch into the park was a nice callback to many of our earlier rides. Quiet road, not much around, pretty hills. There were some stretches of gravel, which was less nice.

Finally, it opened up and we could see the border fence. The Mexican side is much more developed, and there was some kind of festival in progress. The US side is pretty bare, and is not particularly welcoming.

We came up the final hill, and could see our minivan parked. Ruth called out to it, telling it how much she missed it. Then we saw our pickup group, and parked. The tour was over.

We chatted for a bit and took some photos. Then it was time to remember how we packed everything in the car, and drive back to the hotel.

The drive was weird. It’s been seven weeks since I’ve driven, and back in Oregon since I’ve even been in a motor vehicle. Accelerating onto the highway was super speed. Hills are conquered with a little press of the foot. Most of a day’s work can be backtracked in half an hour.

I’m excited, but sad, to be done with the tour. We’ve been talking about it for years, and planning it for most of the last year. Now we’ve spent nearly two months where biking was the sole focus. It’ll be nice to get back to other things, but I already miss it.

Tomorrow is a bonus rest day, before driving back home. We’re going to go to the zoo. The kids have done an amazing job doing stuff for us. We need to do something for them.