We made it to San Diego!!! (and boy are our legs sore!)

Day 1: We were supposed to leave LA at 9am in the morning. But we hung late with our friends the night before, so we woke up late. The morning of our departure we realized our racks didn't fit. Rawn and Deb ran around town and managed to locate some racks. Christiaan, Philip, and Rawn sent us off from Santa Monica Pier at about 9 in the evening (photos in previous post). We rode off into the night, down the empty beach trail all the way to Palos Verdes. My cousin Celia and Ace let us stay with them for our first night. What we didn't know was there was a four mile incline up a crazy hill in pitch black darkness to get to their house in Palos Verdes. (And there were snakes!!) We started to question why the hell we were doing this again. We didn't get to their house until 1am in the morning. Poor planning on our part. But they had a fancy Aveda-product-filled bathroom, which was super nice! Thanks guys!


Day2: The ride downhill was way more fun! What took us an hour to climb, only took ten minutes to descend. We stopped at a grocery store and bought bread, nutella, peanut butter, and string cheese sticks which we ate at a little coffee shop nearby.

Karin: "I love you Debbie"
Debbie: "I love you Karin, last night was crazy!"
Business man passing us: dirty look

We continued our ride down the coast and rode past some breathtaking views of the Southern California coast. We met a nice man on a bike named Greg who showed us how to get out of the Long Beach Harbor and gave us some good bike tips. We stopped for lunch at Sunset Beach and did some yoga. Our string cheese from the morning had melted in our bags so we pretended we were eating fried mozarella sticks. Debbie saw a school of dolphins as we were riding up a crazy hill in Laguna Beach. After a long day of riding we ended up at a camp site in Doheny State Park. Total mileage for the day was 55 miles. The day did not end there. Keep reading below, we met some crazy boys at our campsite....

That evening we set up our tents for the first time and slept in them. We also met a really sweet girl named Carrie who was so brave she biked from LA to San Diego and back all by herself and slept on the ground with no tent. That night we ate the rest of our groceries from that morning. Debbie made a sandwich with melted string cheese, peanut butter, and nutella. We pretended we were having peanut butter chocolate cheesecake. Yum!

We also met a group of college boys who snuck booze onto the campgrounds, and were more than generous with us. They offered us everything they could think of including, documentary editing and film developing for free, gardening work, free golf balls, airplane maintenance, booze, food, and free advertising. Too cute, too hot! If only they were of age. There's nothing finer than a minor, but we didn't want to press our luck.

ps - my favorite was Joey (guy directly above me). He's a RA at UCLA studying drama, and hopes to grow our some facial hair that doesn't make him look homeless. He drank too much and kept Debs & I up all night listening to him puke. Don't worry, I'll come looking for you at the Viceroy when I get back to LA.

Day 3: The morning after. I'm sleeping naked in a see-thru tent. I set up the tent in the dark the night before and didn't realize it was totally see-thru. Thank god I'm covered and not flashing the entire campground.

We got on the road and left Doheny State Park around 10-11am. We were feeling extra tired and grouchy that morning, then I fell off my bike. Debbie laughed at me and took a picture.

We rode through a military training site called Camp Pendleton, and then stoppped to have lunch in Oceanside beach.

We were hoping to make it to San Diego by this night. A nice man on a bike stopped to give us directions, but we didn't get his name. He said he was on his way to work, I asked him what he did for a living, and I thought he said he was a bartender, Debbie thought he said he was a policeman. We're not sure what he does for a living, but he gave us really good directions to get to San Deigo. Thanks a bunch! Write us and tell us your name and what you do.

Early evening we rode through Torrey Pines, which was an insane hill. It sucked so bad, I wanted to throw all my equipment into the sea. My entire body is still sore from it. (But it was pretty!)

Around 9 o'clock on a full moon, Debbie and I got into San Diego. We called Walter. Walter is seriously the nicest friend two tired bikers could have. He surprised us with a hotel room in San Diego!!! OMG when I heard the news over the phone I screamed like I won the lottery. So we hauled ass into San Diego knowing there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Along the way, we got lost again, and Mike came to our rescue. Mike found us at he corner of Mission Bay and some other street I don't know. Turns out he's a year-round lifeguard here in San Diego and also a cyclist. He just did a crazy tour two weeks ago in the Italian alps. Seriously the kindest man, after riding us all the way to our hotel, he also treated us to NY style pizza. He was a guardian angel. Thanks a million Mike!

Around 10 o'clock we get to the hotel with Walter. Walter hooked it up!!!! This place was sweet!Cable TV, kitchen, living room, two queen size beds, hot shower, robe terry cloth robes. We are the luckiest girls in the world! It was seriously a day of abundance! To top it all off, at the end of the night I went to the Coke machine to buy a can of soda, and three cans of soda fell out!!!! We slept so well!!! Thanks Walter!!!!! Ok more in a few days. We are heading out to lunch with Walter now.