San Diego, CA

We have successfully completed the first half of our trip - the border-to-border survey of the West Coast. It took us under five weeks including all the rest days and just 26 days of riding in which we covered almost 2000 miles. Needless to say, we are feeling very happy it all went so smoothly. Our legs are sore, our faces are sun burnt, our bikes are dusty and scratched but the feeling of accomplishment is overwhelming.

Over the last three days, since we left LA, we've been taking it fairly easy. We managed to get out of the city using the Metro system, which is an accomplishment in itself, given the level of public transportation (or lack thereof) in LA. We then rode through Long Beach, Newport, Laguna and all the other beautiful beaches just swarming with surfers of all ages, sizes and degrees of craziness.

By the time we reached beautiful San Clemente, we were actually getting excited to camp out for the night as we had spent the last few days getting spoilt at our friend's place in Pasadena. But lo and behold, we ended up having a huge home cooked meal and spending the night at a beach house about a mile from the campground we intended to reach that night. We ran into a guy named Patrick while paying for our canned chili at the local grocery store. He was standing in line behind us and we started talking. Appears that Patrick had completed the exact same route on his bike many years ago and the next thing we knew - we were on the way to Patrick and his son Kevin's house to share our stories. The generosity of people here keeps astounding us. Patrick has cycled through numerous states, skied the highest mountains in the US, scaled many a peak on the West Coast and collected an awesome collection of mountaineering books that we talked about for the majority of the night. While spending time at Patrick's place, Tomas and I decided we will one day climb a mountain together.

The next day we saw more wild surfer beaches and rode through Pendleton Marine Corps Base Camp, which now has an awesome bike path stretching through its entire length. We didn't realize we were riding through a military base for a while. We took the bike path which trailed along an eerie-looking abandoned old road through the sand dunes. The road was eroded by the elements and vegetation, mother nature claiming it quickly while man is off guard. We were enjoying this strange sight but riding pretty fast when all of a sudden, three fully equipped and manned tanks appeared in front of us. After we figured out what was going on, we took some pictures with the troops. We later saw more tanks, helicopters, assault lessons taking place on the grass and even talked to some guys leading this lifestyle so very different from ours.

Later we reached San Elijo State Beach, where we spent the afternoon hanging out on the beach, reading John Krakauer, Yann Martel and observing the surfers on the waves. Actually, we touched the Ocean for the first time since we started the trip. And we chose a good time and place to do that - the water was warm, clear and great for bathing - even without a wet suit.

We slept right on the beach, with loud noises of rip curls crashing into the sand. A funny thing happened in the morning. Our tent randomly collapsed on our heads. Turns out one of the poles snapped. We had no problems with the tent for the entire month, building it and packing it up almost every day but today it decided to go on strike. Luckily, there is an REI store in San Diego and given their excellent customer service, we were in possession of a brand new Mountain Hardware tent by late afternoon.

We also got some cardboard boxes for packing our bikes for the trip to Detroit. And we met Tim, who not only offered to drive the huge boxes to our place but also got us extra bubble wrap, a wrench we needed to dismantle our bikes and, most importantly, a gallon of freshly brewed stout beer which was just what we needed after a long and sticky day out. As I have mentioned, people are so nice to us on this trip it is hard to believe it. If anything, this trip has served as a reminder that the world can be very different from the all-business human interaction we've been exposed to in the last couple of years.

We are staying at our friend's house in northern San Diego until our flight on Friday. We will probably explore the town and check out the beach tomorrow but the biggest task is to pack our bikes in the boxes and set them up for a soft, snug ride on the plane. If they let me, I would gladly load and unload the entire baggage for that flight just to give proper care to our bikes. But it's not very likely that they will. All we can do is pray to the baggage gods that our precious vehicles survive the journey unscathed.