Day Eighteen

Mileage: 72.9 miles
Total: 1053 miles

Phew! It felt great to get through Orange County and back on bike paths and familiar roads through Camp Pendleton and on down to San Elijo State Beach. It's a strange feeling to currently be lying in a tent within 20 miles of my own bed, and within 50 miles of the end of this tour. Of course, if you look at my anticipated mileage I have already reached it. Apparently side trips and detours, planned and unplanned, add up.

The riding today was quite pleasant, especially compared with yesterday's route through LA. However, I have to admit I finally got a flat tire. I was in denial about it. I tried to pretend it didn't happen. But it did. Yesterday, after my little sliding crash in Venice Beach I noticed my front tire pressure was low. I pumped it up and rode the rest of the day. However, when I went to leave the hotel room this morning it was very low again. I thought about just pumping it back up, since clearly its a slow leak. Then came acceptance. And I changed the tire. So there you have it. I finally got a flat.

This morning we enjoyed bike path riding along the beach all the way to Newport Beach, where we then took the ferry over to Balboa Island, which is home of the original frozen banana stand. For all you Arrested Development fans, remember "there's always money in the banana stand." What's even better is we saw Lucille swimming in the water during our ferry ride, she swam under before I was able to get a picture. Don't worry Adele and I still have our hands!

Fueled with frozen bananas we continued down the coast through Orange County and lunched at San Onofre State Beach. Another day, another peanut butter and jelly sandwich while staring at the pacific ocean. We then got back on our bikes and pedaled south through Camp Pendleton. It was definitely fun to bike through and see the various types of helicopters land and take off, or the marines playing on the ropes course. I have to admit, it did cross my mind to bike over and ask for a turn. As I've been biking the coast I keep singing the Beach Boys song "Surfin' USA" to myself, and now I think I have biked past nearly every beach mentioned in that song. Today definitely felt like southern california with all the beaches crowded with surfers.

Once we made it to camp this afternoon we enjoyed whipping up some tasty guacamole, thanks to Linda in Santa Barbara, who gave us several avocados from her tree. It's always fun at the hiker/biker site talking to other bike tourers and brainstorming future trips.

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