SANTA CLARITA CALIFORNIA TO MEXICO/... LOG

DAY 44/ 45/ 46 Santa Clarita 12.73 KM JUNE 12/13/14/ 01 TUES/WEDS/THURS

Spent 4 wonderful days at Dave and Joanne Syrja's in Santa Clarita swimming, eating, sunning by the pool and resting. Spent one evening at Universal City Walk for dinner and live band at BB Kings. Decisions to be made as to next adventures. I found time to go running each day on the hills of Santa Clarita. It is desert country and even at 7 am temp is +15C.

We toured the Getty Center a museum/ art exposition funded by the Getty foundation. I would love to return as it is so large we were unable to see it all. As with everything here, the gardens were magnificent. They are well worth going in just to see the plants. Everything grows twice as large here! We were so happy that Dave was able to take time off to go with us. It makes the memories more special.

Found time for hair cut, internet updating, reading and bike maintenance.

We were very happy to spend this great time renewing our friendships. I really enjoyed getting to know Joanne better and hope to see them again soon up in our neck of the woods. They have a lovely home and are wonderful friends! As you can see from the KM we didn't spend much time in our saddles so as to get a complete rest!!

DAY 47 Santa Clarita to Santa Monica 72.85 KM JUNE 15/ 01 FRIDAY

Up and off early as we expected lots of traffic as we must make our way thru busy city streets. We were so glad that the Getty Center was almost in Santa Monica, so Dave had driven our side street route to help us plan.

We were unable to see our neice Christine, but did go to meet her roommate and see the area they live in. We wandered on the Santa Monica Pier and sunned on the beach. We stayed in a motel so we could enjoy this area.

The LA lakers basketball team won the MBA Championship tonight! Everyone here was very excited!

DAY 48 Santa Monica to Doheny State Beach 118.23 KM JUNE 16/ 01 SATURDAY

The first half of our day (30k) was spent on a great bike path right on the beach from Santa Monica, Venice, Manhattan , Hermosa, and Redondo beachs. The homes are right up to the path and don't look like much, but are expensive properties. The beachs are now covered with people who are sunbathing, playing volleyball and surfing. The path is very busy with families and couples biking and jogging. It is really nice to see people out enjoying their own town.

Long Beach was very rough on the road. My face got covered with "grit" I wonder what is in my lungs. The oil refineries and nuclear power plants are along this route. As we continued to Seal beach the realistate is becoming more pricey, but the beach access for the local person is still really great.

The interstate interchanges are very dangerous and I don't know how one could avoid this area. It is not an area I would even want to do in a car, so I don't know what I was doing there on a bike!! Got thru it luckily and on to other adventures!

We met a local fellow who sent us down Cove road into Dana Point and the views of the marina were stunning, as was the steepness of the road! The campground has a 1 night in 3 policy to keep the transient population out(which isn't really effective), with a 4pm check in and 9am check out. The Amtrak, 50 ft away, is more effective in keeping me from staying any more than 1 night! This is the first campsite I have not felt entirely safe in. The others in our site were not on holidays and made me feel uncomfortable, not that I was in any real danger. We met a nice boy from Montreal who has been traveling our same route and he voiced the same concern. This is a problem that needs to be addressed, but is very difficult in an area with transient workers and no reasonable facilities for them to rent.

DAY 49 Doheny State Park to San Elijo State Park 75.76 KM JUNE 17/ 01 SUNDAY

Happy Father's Day to all those great guys in our life! The nicest part of todays ride was a 12 mile strech thru Camp Pendleton Military base. The path goes along an old road and the signs are interesting....ie. TANK CROSSING.... There were lots of bike"racers" riding this route. One section looked like a plane runway, for military use, but we were just biking along it. They do check your id before you enter the base.

A lot of today after the base was on city side streets or S21 which is like hwy 97 thru towns. There were 4 campsites along todays route, but as they have the 4 pm check in time, we continued on to San Elijo. The small shops are looking more Mexican and all the streets have mexican names.

The ocean is full of surfers. I don't know if I will be able to get in, it's not the temperature really, it's the seaweed and the sand! I will try tomorrow!! There are steep steps going down the cliffs to the ocean.

This campsite is much better even though our site mates are 3 "transient?" persons. I spent time tonight talking to one girl who shared with me the difficulty in being in a minimum wage $4.15 job and try to have an apartment which costs ~$6-700./month for a studio. She said this is the only way to save money by staying in spots like this, but the rules make it hard as only 1 night in 3 to a max of 10 nights a year per park. She said staying here she feels safe! Now don't I feel guilty! being afraid of them! Obviously this area needs to look at the working poor. These are working persons not beggers. All 3 are very neat and clean. It just breaks my heart! What a world we live in!

DAY 50 San Elijo State Park to San Diego KOA 67.70 KM JUNE 18/ 01 MONDAY

The hiway is very noisy as it is cement and has joins so the tires make a clunking sound. The shoulder is good, but glass ladden and has more "frost heaves" than back home. The transients were gone by 6 am!!

Took a side trip up to Torrey Pines State Reserve to see the rarest pine trees in North America. They had a different bark, but looked much like Okanagan pines, but smaller. This reserve is at the start of San Diego's urban sprawl. The ride is easy to follow in our guide book and not a busy route as I expected. We went on a bike path along the shore which was also amazing to me that it was right in town. Definitely yuppy ville,(very expensive) Tons of teens as school is out, playing beach volley ball and surfing. Got the best Falfel wrap for lunch from a street vender here.

The Harbour Blvd took us right into the downtown area and we checked out the train (Amtrak) and the trolley to go to Mexico and Little Italy. As a local said to me... The way to get around here in the traffic is to "suck it up and go!" At one spot we had to cross over 5 lanes of cars to turn left, which a local biker did in front of me, ...signal... move over... turned infront of a large truck and just merged into the traffic.... I was a little more caucious, but made it.

We decided to go on to the KOA and had a great evening in the pool and hot tub. We should sleep well as we are away from the road! The rum will help too!

DAY 51 San Diego KOA to Tijuana Mexico by trolley 16 KM JUNE 19/ 01 TUESDAY

Walked ~2k to the Trolley station and headed for Tijuana. The trolley is like the LRT in Edmonton, but all surface. We arrived to the US side of the boarder and then took a suttle bus to Revolucion St, Tijuana. To our amazement you don't need to go thru customs. The driver drove very fast and I was glad not to be on my bike!

It was an eye opener to get off the bus and enter the maze of street venders and shops where the shop keepers come out and try to lur you in to buy some trinket. Lots of nice blankets and leather goods, but I don't think I want to make my load heavier right now. We wandered and enjoyed people watching. We strayed into a area more of locals and ended up in a "food fair" sweat kitchen where they were making meals. Knowone spoke English and they were trying to sell us lunch. Try to explain you are a vegitarian! with sign language. I ended up in the kitchen looking at the food and we finally found one cook who spoke a little English. We had a great meal of Cheese stuffed green peppers, breaded and grilled, beans, rice, fresh tortillas and salad. Hope we won't be sorry tomorrow!!

I think that Sue will have to get a few spanish lessons from Lisa as many street vendors thought she was Mexican(she has been in the sun to long) until they see her blue eyes. Arrived back at the KOA safely. They have a telephone line here that you can use with your laptop so we are hoping to get this uploaded tonight.