Wednesday - Got here in GREAT time and when we arrived at the Travelodge our room wasn't ready yet. Need parts for Sarah, James and my rides so we went looking for a bike store. After some bad GPS directions we ended up at Performance Bike, otherwise known as Mecca. We managed to walk out spending less than $150! We then went to a burger/malt shop and had what James described as "the best vanilla I've ever tasted". We checked into our room, swam in the pool and ate Thai food watching TV.
Thursday - We surprised the kids by taking them to Legoland. It was a bit of subterfuge to pull it off. We were supposed to meet my friend Shannon McNulty but she's competing this weekend in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and she needed to pack so she couldn't meet us. It ended up being okay as we found a nice little town called Solana Beach where we took the kids to play in the Pacific, we took in a little music and bought dinner at a whole foods supermarket - which we took home at and ate in front of the TV.
Friday - Sarah turned 13!!!!! To celebrate we took her to the San Diego Zoo and we all walked ourselves ragged. Sarah discovered a new group that is now one of her favorites - mainly because she covets the singer's Steam Punk goggles - called Steam Powered Giraff. Here is a sample of their music;
We then had sushi at a great little place in University Park and follwed it up with frozen yogurt at the Golden Spoon.
Which brings us to today. The original plan was to have a "do nothing" day but that really meant we weren't going to travel in the car for long distances. I got up and got Pearl ready for a recon rixce and we headed off to Ocean Beach to scope out the start point of this 3700 mile journey. While there, I found out that there was some sort of festival happending in Ocean Beach so I thought it might be fun for us to scope out the start point as a family and maybe hang out at the festival for a while. I knew we only had until 6:00 because at that point we were supposed to meet James"Jim" Connor for dinner.
Jim is related to us through a common ancestor William Alexander Connor and he got in touch with me some time back through my sister Alina. He saw that we were coming out here to San Diego and he lives out here so we've been e-mailing and facebooking for a few weeks. We were so excited because we were finally going to meet this nice individual live and in person. Alas, it was not to be, but more on that later.
So, I took off on my ride and riding along the first five miles was so incredibly pleasant. It begins on a bike path that parallels the San Diego River Floodway before breaking off into the city. Of course, I had a VERY frightening moment when I was almost the victim of a drive by squirreling as one of our furry friends darted right in front of me and I missed him by mere inches. I had visions of this flashing before my eyes;
 |
| (he won't try that trick again!) |
Anyway, I continued on to try and make it to the halfway point of my journey tomorrow and I got awfully close. I hit a few 6-8 percent rises that were a tad long but nothing major. Of course, that will all hit me tomorrow when I least expect it!
I made it back to the hotel in less than two hours after logging 42 total miles (26 out and 16 back) ready to have a fun last day in San Diego with the family. After cajoling and convincing William that it would be fun, we headed out to Ocean Beach Park to scope out the place where I'll be departing tomorrow. Of course, the only problem wih that was it was a gorgeous day, it was a Saturday, and this is Southern California where 80% of the population goes to the beach. So we sat in traffic for a while. It was while in traffic we came up with a brillant idea - the kids are going to ride with me along the bike path for the first three miles. Once the path ends and we start on city roads I'll load up their bikes, they'll head up to Lakeside and I'll ride up on my bike.
Okay, here is were I'm going to vent a bit. You see we have gotten a lot of offers of help from various sources over the two years we've been talking about this ride to benefit Sunrise Day Camp. Unfortunately, too often that help has either dried up or failed to materialize at all after the initial contact. One such individual had offered to help me connect with local riders to perhaps ride with me the first part of the journey. Despite numerous attempts at contacting them, I've heard nothing from that first offer. We get offers from people who have offered to either sponsor or donate to Sunrise - nothing ever happens. It has started to wear on Amy and I becuase we feel like we are alone in this endeavor, that although people think it is an amazing thing we're doing, they don't want to help.
However, trying to be more like Brian and looking on the bright side of life, we have gotten some amazing help from Gina Nemo with some press contacts and there have been many recent offers of help that HAVE come through. "Live It Up! With Donna Drake" has offered to come aboard as our official media sponsor and we have had some amazing offers of free nights from some of the hotels that we have contacted along our route. We're hoping now that some media attention about our ride will help generate some funds for the campers of Sunrise and that's what this is all about.
Okay, off the soap box. After we finally found a place to park (using Amy's patented parking karma) we headed to the beach and the festival. It turns out that part of the festival was a chili cook off! The kids weren't in the mood for chili (damn!) so we headed to a funky little cafe instead where we had an amazing light lunch and I had the best tomatoe basil soup I've ever had!
We headed back to the beach where the kids proceeded to run in and out of the waves until William backpedalled himself right into the water. We had to curtail the highjinks for a bit but then the whole family eventually got into building a sand castle before heading back home. We packed up a bit, got everyone showered and prepared to go to dinner and meet the other James Connor.
It was while trying to get to Ortegas that we realized the other part of the festival was this HUUUUUGGGGGEEEEEE street fair. Amy's karma kicked in again and we ended up parking a block and a half from where we needed to go. Unfortunately, Jim never got there so we have yet to meet him. However, I had some amazing Mexican food - and THE best chimichanga I've ever eaten. While eating the thought hit me that this was my last supper before starting on this epic ride and that led to me thinking about the Last Supper and despite my Catholic conversion, the only thing I could think of was this;
But, I know its just the start of a new adventure - one that I hope will make a difference in the lives of some very deserving young people. If you're reading this for the first time, welcome. If you ARE reading it for the first time, I would invite you to go here and give whatever you can, no amount is too small, to help us help the kids of Sunrise.
Well, its now 10:45 PST and that means its only T minus 9 hours 15 minutes. Time to get some shut eye. Tomorrow's post will be from Pine Valley, CA.
Stay well my friends, I'll see you on the raod!
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