Superturismo en San Diego

Although this is not my first time in San Diego, I've always come to visit family rather than do anything particularly touristy.  So I decided to take advantage of the perfect 68 degree sunny blue skies and do a long bike ride to see all the sights.  My route was a bit over 40 miles as I passed through the unimpressive historic Gaslight Village, Balboa Park, the gorgeous if a bit touristy Coronado Island, the iconic Silver Strand, and back to Bonita.

About 40 miles of superturismo.

My first stop was Balboa Park via the historic Gaslight Village.  While I was not impressed by the Gaslight Village as it reminded me a bit of the failure of Washington DC's Chinatown, Balboa Park offers a wonderful cluster of museums, green space, and the famous San Diego Zoo.  I only stopped by the San Diego Air and Space Museum due to time limitations and not wanting to spend too much time indoors on such a perfect day.

Not quite as awesome as the ones in DC, but still cool!

I decided to head towards the water and found the USS Midway which now houses a museum.  I debated back and forth about forking up the $20 entrance fee, and ended up just admiring the exterior while partaking in some local food truck fare.  

BBQ pork sliders from the food truck next to the USS Midway.

Silliness at the Broadway Pier across from the USS Midway.

From there, I decided to take the ferry across to Coronado Island... they allow bikes on for free!  

Look, my bike is on a boat!

The USS Midway from the ferry to Coronado.

Coronado Island was beautiful, its sand speckled with gold flecks.  The Silver Strand offers a lovely dedicated bike path and I was inspired by the half dozen military amputees zooming down the bike path on hand crank bikes or with the aid of prosthetics.

I'll pretend my bike didn't fall the first time I tried to take this shot.

Of course the first order of business back at the house was to get some hammock time in with an ice cold Karl Strauss Pintail Pale Ale, a local San Diego craft beer, and a good book.  

Friday is departure day!  My U.S. cell will no longer work so please contact me privately if you need my Skype information.  While I will have a Mexican SIM card for my dumb phone, I don't plan on using it except for emergencies or making local calls. 

San Diego (aka Vacation From My Vacation Before My Vacation)

I ended my five week long cross country road trip with mixed feelings.  I felt that I didn't have quite enough time in any particular place, but arrived in San Diego happy to have a home base for a little while to recover from the long days of driving and the ambitious schedule I had set for the trip, and to allow Gonzalo to get some work done.  So after five weeks of car "ownership," I happily relinquished my gas-guzzling Chevy Impala.  Gonzalo and I were greeted at the rental car return by my dad, who decided to come down to San Diego for a couple days.

While my dad is staying with my cousin, Gonzalo and I are staying with Gonzalo's friend and gracious host Eduardo, who welcomed us with a chilaquiles and cafe de la olla brunch, and a dedicated hammock zone in his yard.

Digesting our chilaquiles brunch in the zona de hamacas.

The first order of business was to relax and otherwise take advantage of the weekend to break bread with family and friends in the area.

Dad and I decided to meet up for a hike up Cowles Mountain which boasts a 360 degree panaroma of the San Diego area and even tidbits of Tijuana and the Coronado islands on a clear day.  It's the highest point in San Diego at a whopping 1591 feet above sea level.

Tyson, this one is for you.  They even tell you where to find them!

San Diego county officials have a strange way of locking up the gate.

Dad at the top of the mountain!

Now that the weekend is over, it's time to deal with all the last minute things like calling my banks to update my travel notifications, paying my credit card bill one last time, tuning up my bike, going through my gear one last time, and doing a final fully loaded test ride before we head across the border on Thursday or Friday morning!

Test Ride Redux n' Redwoods Mania

Crescent City is one of those small sleepy towns that bills itself as the hotspot for tourists looking to enjoy the place where the ocean meets the Redwoods.  We woke up the next morning to mist and clouds, but the weather forecast promised it would clear up in the afternoon, so I decided to do a solo test ride to scout out some cycling options through the Redwoods for the afternoon while Gonzalo stayed at the Super 8 to get some work done.

Setting off for a solo test ride while Gonzalo works from our classiest of Super 8 Motels (photo credit: Gonzalo).

Although I started off a little wobbly, I soon found myself riding with a lot more confidence, thanks to the pared down and reorganized set-up and sheer stubbornness.  I spent the next hour and a half exploring Crescent City and its nearby environs, including the beautiful bike trail along the bay.  Then the clouds suddenly cleared and I found myself rolling along the coast with a stupid grin on my face.

Gorgeous test ride along the bay.

I found my way to the local lighthouse and a lovely local retiree struck up a conversation with me about my bike and my trip.  She gave me some wonderful words of encouragement and a few wise bits of advice that come with being 73 and a fellow kindred free spirit.

Taking in the view of the lighthouse on my test ride.

I rushed back to the Motel 8 to make lunch... some awesome quesadillas a la microonda for myself and Gonzalo, and then we set off to cycle Howland Hill Road, an unmaintained dirt road that runs through old growth Redwoods.

Perfect ride through the Redwoods.

Perfect parking spot while we checked out some massive trees.

So tall!

The Redwoods reminded us of a forest lost in time... and Star Wars and Ewoks.  We took our time winding through these giants, stopping as usual to find and photograph the beauty in every nook and cranny of our journey.  And as always, silliness prevailed as we sang and whistled the theme music from Endor scenes from Episode 6 and pretended to zoom along on speeder bikes.

Prehistoric beauty.

Dead tree fun (photo credit: Gonzalo).

Morning mist condensation on a clover... which were proportionate to the Redwood trees!

"Photogenic flower" I found on a side hike.

While most folks seemed to explore the Redwoods by car, maybe stopping at a hiking trailhead for a photo opp, we were happy to explore them by bike.  I'm pretty sure we saw a different side of the Redwoods than most tourists...

I don't think I'm supposed to be in here (photo credit: Gonzalo).

I think Gonzalo called me the evil tree queen (photo credit: Gonzalo).

My cross country road trip is finally coming to an end.  After leaving Crescent City and continuing the gorgeous drive along the 101 through California wine country, I reconnected with a few very old and dear friends in San Francisco and Long Beach.  Over 5000 miles later, it's time to turn in my rental car in San Diego tomorrow, catch up with family one last time, and make our final preparations before we start the bike tour towards the end of next week.

The Pacific Northwest (aka Tour De Familia y Friends)

Over the last couple of years, I've come to realize the importance of making life a shared experience and not to spend so much time in tiny boxes alone.  And so Washington and Oregon passed me by in a whirlwind of visiting family and friends.

Puget Sound at sunset with my big brother Don and nephew (to be) Stockton at their "exclusive" cove in Normandy Park.

Seattle was a blur of catching up with my big brother, making a pilgrimage to the REI flagship store with Gonzalo, checking out the Space Needle, taking a token walk through Pikes Place Market, hiking up Tiger Mountain, gabbing over dinner with an old friend from DC who had moved out to Seattle, paring down my gear one last time, and getting one last night of dancing in with another friend from DC who just happened to be visiting at the time.

View of the Space Needle from the back of the EMP Museum.

My sister-in-law (to be) Jill, Vance (not pictured here), and I took advantage of the perfect spring weather to hike up Tiger Mountain.

Too soon it was time to leave Seattle and head south through Portland, with detours to catch up with two of my favorite cousins along the way.  By dinnertime Gonzalo and I invaded Corvallis to terrorize yet another former DC escapee.  We collected a few more cat and dog hairs and headed out early the next day to make the gorgeous drive out towards the Oregon coast and down the iconic Pacific Coast highway 101.  Imprinted in my brain is the magical misty beauty of this drive.

Oregon sand dunes.  

We couldn't resist following the big ass arrow to the ocean view. 

No false advertising here.  Thar eet iz.

Magical.  Misty.  Beauty.

Obligatory "my bike was there" shot.

Gonzalo and I are currently holed up in a Super 8 Motel in Crescent City, California for the next two nights, where gas costs $4.25 a gallon.  This is only important because we decided to wait until we got to California thinking it might be cheaper than Oregon because of the tax Oregon adds to their gas prices to finance the full service gas attendants.  Whoops.  That $3.69 gas is looking pretty great right now.  But life has a funny way of balancing itself out... we probably saved just as much when I convinced the receptionist at the Super 8 Motel to give us their lowest online advertised price, which was $15 less than any other place in town.

Tomorrow I'll be doing a second test run with my newly pared down and reorganized gear, then we'll be off to do a little dirt road riding amongst the Redwoods.

Shaking Out The Gear

The past week has been a relaxing blur of family meals, original Star Trek re-runs, sleeping in, running errands, tuning up and fixing my dad's new-to-him vintage Schwinn, drafting power of attorney documents for my uncle, drafting my final will and testament, becoming an official resident of the Evergreen State, and tying up loose ends.

Quick father-daughter bike ride to test out my work on his vintage Schwinn.

And last but not least, I spent a day shaking out all my bike touring gear in the obnoxiously pink room my mother decorated for my niece.

The gear.  All of it.  So much pink.

Gonzalo and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful sunny 70 degree weather to my first fully loaded test ride.  While I've done shorter bike tours with rear panniers, I've never done fully loaded touring with the addition of the front panniers.  From everything I had read in other trip blogs, I knew there would be a learning curve with respect to how the bike handles with the front panniers.  Most people practice first on flat pavement.  Not thinking particularly clearly, we headed out to Badger Mountain, a local mountain biking and hiking spot.

All geared up at the trailhead (photo credit: Gonzalo).

Well, true to Badger Mountain's name, it was truly a little mountain with a gravel trail that went straight up.  I quickly figured out that I had forgotten to attach the bottom of my handlebar harness, I had put too much weight up front in an overly zealous effort to keep the bike balanced, and the inclusion of all my wishful thinking items had thwarted my efforts to keep my bike tour not-so-fully-loaded.  After rearranging my panniers to move some weight back and to take a few things out that weren't essential or could be easily procured on the road, we started out again.

Nope, not riding up this (photo credit: Gonzalo).

We realized quickly after I nearly crashed out several times that maybe a steep loose gravel trail was not the best place for me to get used to the handling of a fully loaded touring bike.  So we headed to the road and biked alongside the beautiful vineyards of the wineries nearby.  

Much better... too bad we didn't get to taste any wine at this winery (photo credit: Gonzalo)!

I'll definitely need some more practice rides to get used to the handling with the front panniers, but that will come soon enough.  We're off to Seattle tomorrow to visit my brothers!

4000 Miles Down, 1500 Miles To Go

Idaho welcomed me with my first speeding ticket in over 15 years and another contender for "where LeeAnn could live if and when she comes back to the U.S."  After being given a personal tour of downtown Boise by my friend Melissa, a former co-worker turned fellow law student turned BigLaw monkey turned in house counsel monkey, I was left with the distinct impression that Boise has a wonderful balance of eclectic funky culture, thriving cycling community, mountains, and that elusive warm cozy small-town feel.  That may also have been Melissa's lawyering skills not-so-secretly trying to persuade me to move to Boise as well.

Melissa takes us to a dark back alley with velociraptors.

Jeffkins, this one reminded me of you.

Of particular note was the thriving local craft brew scene and the homebrew supply store around the corner from Melissa's house.

Continuing my local craft beer tour... both the Thunder Monkey and Outlaw were delicious, and paired well with the poutine fries we got.  When in Idaho, eat potatoes.

After a lovely happy hour, we headed back to have homemade tacos made by Melissa's husband and we passed the evening chatting and drinking wine.  The next morning, we were a little worse for the wear, but it was time to head to Richland, WA to my parents' place for some R n' R and to drop off my earthly possessions.

Driving through three snowstorms makes for a dirty Chevy Impala.

Righting my wrong.

What's becoming more and more clear is that when I settle down somewhere again, it will definitely be somewhere Colorado or west.  I find myself surprisingly in love with small towns like Moab or small cities like Boise... so much so that I can't imagine living somewhere like Washington DC again for any extended period of time.

Thank You Most Chubby President For Mukuntuweap National Monument (d/b/a Zion National Park)

Gonzalo and I found ourselves wishing we had just one more day to shoot the shit with Ron and Mike, one more day to explore Canuyonlands, but it was time to move on to Zion National Park.  We took our time packing up, said our goodbyes, and found ourselves tooling down scenic UT-89 past small towns struggling to stay alive.  We had lunch at the charming Prospector's Cafe in Marysvale, Utah and continued onto the "big" town of Pascuitch to get our grocery shopping done.  The hardest decision of the day was which of the iconic Utah beers to get… the WaSatch Evolution Amber Ale barely edged out the Polygamy Porter.

Pleasantly surprised at the wide selection of local craft brews, including the cycling inspired beers (photo credit: Gonzalo)!

First things first before setting up camp.  I'm a pro at picking the best campsites on the edge at the generally overcrowded national parks.

We had three full days to explore so we picked the three hardest hikes: (1) Angels Landing (with an add-on of Emerald Pools), (2) Hidden Canyon and Observation Point, and (3) as much of the Narrows we could manage without renting the gear.

While not particularly technical, Angels Landing is a big rock fin that you traverse.  The hike requires a steep hike up with a psychological component that makes it difficult for the acrophobic because it requires rock scrambling on a ridge with steep drop offs on both sides.  Although a bit crowded at the summit, we found some solace atop a rock formation and exploring the other side of the summit to the final drop off. 

The true summit of Angels Landing (photo credit: Gonzalo).

Exploring a drop off with cairns set up to mess with us... there was an itty bitty cairn set up just before the cliff edge.

Hidden Canyon and Observation Point started off the same trailhead and offered two very different kind of hikes.  Hidden Canyon is a mostly unmaintained "trail" at the bottom of a canyon with a rock scrambling and climbing obstacle course of sorts.

Gonzalo attempts a technical approach.

The one time being little is an advantage...  (photo credit: Gonzalo).

The hike up to Observation Point, however, is basically straight up and challenging only for the weak-lunged.  Luckily, that's a lot of people and we had the trail to ourselves for most of the hike and I took the time to truly enjoy the silence.

"Photogenic cacti" on the edge of the trail on the Eastern Rim.

Gonzalo teasing a chipmunk with his snack at the top.  It's clear this guy has been fed one too many times.

Aaaaand, sneaky lil bugger.

Taking some time to enjoy the hike down from Observation Point.

This beautiful canyon meandered aside our trail (photo credit: Gonzalo)

Originally, I didn't really intend to hike the Narrows after a friend of mine did it and couldn't walk for weeks afterwards.  I thought maybe we could do some shorter hikes in other parts of the park.  But the Narrows is one of the iconic hikes in Zion that I decided we could make a day of biking from the campsite to the trailhead and see how far we could make it.  We knew that the National Park Service highly recommended wetsuits this time of year, so I dug out my whitewater kayaking/rafting gear, while Gonzalo decided to brave it in what he had.  He also brought his inflatable sleeping pad.

We discovered that at this time of year, the water is not only freezing, but the water levels are high with a fairly swift current.  We spent about an hour battling fast, waist-deep waters and numb feet before we decided to turn back.

Gonzalo takes the first steps into the icy cold waters of the Virgin River.

Later that afternoon after we had warmed up, we did some learning at the Zion Human History Museum, which was small but really interesting.  It was there I discovered that President Taft, our fattest president, proclaimed the area a national monument in 1909.  For those not in the know, I love miscellaneous Taft facts because I did a report on him in middle school, and to this day, he is one of the few early presidents that I can remember anything about.  Anyway, at the time, it was called Mukuntuweap National Monument, but was later changed in 1918 to Zion National Park because it had greater "ethnocentric" appeal.  In other words, it sounded too "native."

On the way back from the museum on the Pa'Rus Trail.

After 10 extraordinary days of camping, hiking, cycling, and not showering, we made it a Motel 6 (from which I write this blog post) just north of Salt Lake City to make ourselves presentable, recharge our electronics, and otherwise just relax with no agenda.  It was a luxurious evening of watching movies and ordering in pizza.  Time to pack up and head out to Boise, Idaho!