Riding Back Into the Case...

6:35 AM -- After another night of very poor sleep, I'm happy to say that I'm ready to head out to the back patio and star breaking the bike down to return its various pieces to the case so we can fly back home. If nothing else we'll at least be in a familiar bed and MAYBE will be able to sleep through most of the night. I thought that after yesterday's 49 mile ride nothing would wake me up... It was more along the line of nothing would put me to sleep! And I was tired last night, too... in fact, I still am!

Yesterday's ride ended on a strange note; there is a "bicycle curfew" imposed on Camp Pendleton, and the public is only allowed to cycle through there during those hours. When we first entered the base I asked the young guard at the gate what time we had to be back at the gate to be allowed access to the bike trail, and he said he thought it was 5:00 PM. The key word here was "thought".

It turns out that we hit the northern gate a few minutes too late to be allowed to make our return trip through the base. A few minutes past five o'clock? Nooo... a few minutes past THREE. There is no other way for a cyclist to get from San Clemente to Oceanside, California except to pedal through Camp Pendleton. Well, there is ONE other way; pedal on the shoulder on Interstate 5 for the seven or eight miles of freeway that runs from that particular gate to Oceanside.

So we went from several peaceful miles of NO traffic from the State Park along the coast that uses parts of the abandoned Pacific Coast Highway to riding on the $€¥£%&! freeway! It just doesn't get much better than that!

Well, it's time for me to go tear our freeway assault vehicle down and put it in its case...