Day 49: A long cycle and hit San Diego
Two choices for today. The first choice is to cycle all the way to San Diego. This would be 115 odd kms and my longest cycle by far. The other option is to break it up into 2 days. I decided, fuck it, and booked a hostel in San Diego so committed myself to option 1.
The cycling was mostly on nice wide bike paths all day. That is except for when the Garmin brought be straight to the gates of a military base. I tried to play it cool and laugh it off pointing at my Garmin saying that it is the GPS’s fault. But the army guy at the gate was not laughing and taking no bullshit. “Do you have a military id?”. No, I answer. “Then you need to turn around and leave now”. This is not the kind of guy to mess with so quickly cycled away. This meant I had to join a heavily trafficked highway 5 for 15 km or so.
That was my second encounter with the military personnel. I think I forgot to write about the first encounter. Was a week or so ago. Was cycling near some military base but not in the base itself. Some guy drives alongside me and shouts out the window to me asking me about my trip. He is super interested and we have a good convo. He then tells me he is in the special forces and just back from a tour. He is laughing and joking in the seat of the car but I can tell he is definitely not someone to mess with. After a couple of mins of convo, he wishes me well, waves goodbye and pulls into the military base and I cycle on. A very different encounter to the 2nd army personal encounter.
Met another cyclist today who joined me for an hour or so. Again, his name was Dave, tho different Dave than yesterday. He is a retired software engineer out for a day cycle.
The rest of the cycle is good, but I can feel the big distance hitting my legs for the last 20 km or so.
Am now checked into a hostel. That means I can rest now, correct? Nope.. I then have to drag my bike up 2 flights of stairs..
The next couple of days will be rest days (again). Have to sort my InReach, get new tires for the bike appropriate to Baja, ideally get a service on the bike and do some Baja divide research. Have been saying this for a long time but can’t put it off any longer. Hoping I will get to meet Kerry here who I met a few weeks ago, though I am not sure that the timing will work out.
Promised family that I would try my best to be out of the USA before the election. That means crossing into Mexico on either Monday or Tuesday. I think it would be safer to stay any extra needed days on the USA side of the border rather than hanging out in the Mexican border towns, but what do I know?
Given the next couple of days are rest days, I will again combine them into a single entry.
It is mad that I am basically finished in the USA now. Feels like I am approaching the end of chapter 1 of this trip. Not quite yet though, as I still need to cycle to the border.
