Almost There
By admin | July 4, 2012
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Capistrano Beach to Encinitas
40 miles
Between 80 miles yesterday and such an interesting host, we finally left Sue’s treasure cave about two in the afternoon.
We rode past the San Onofre nuclear power station
(That’s it, behind the trees.)
and through Camp Pendleton Marine Base. Our map and a quick Internet search indicated that the base might only let cyclists through during certain hours, which we were quickly approaching the end of, having started so late. But there was conflicting information on the Internet regarding this, and if the base was closed to us, then we’d be allowed to ride on the freeway. We went through at least two unmanned gates with signs that said we were on base, so we were starting to think that they were relaxing security in this way.
It appeared that we had left the base, so we recoinnoitered, checking our map, and headed west under the 5 freeway. Then the road stopped. We re-recoinnoitered with both map and Internet, and we realized that we hadn’t passed through the main gate of the base at all yet! We headed a bit east, and found a gate with guards. It was past the time our map said we could go through, but they let us right in.
We were quite hungry for lunch by the time we rode another seven miles through the main area of Camp Pendleton. We had passed a caravan of large troop transport vehicles with “Student Driver” signs on them, as well as a kid’s day camp event. It’s very interesting to see what’s on a military base when you don’t usually get to. We stopped for a late lunch at a Cuban restaurant in Oceanside.
We were tired, and neither the energetic Latin music nor the yuca frites nor the passion fruit shake was really making much of a difference. We calculated it was another 17 miles, including a climb off our direct route, to get to the friend’s house we had arranged to stay at this night. We also realized we could be at a hotel in Encinitas, without leaving the street we were riding on, in eleven miles. We called and said we wouldn’t make it.
We stumbled in to the EconoLodge just in time. Both of us were so exhausted. We realized from a Facebook post that another cycling friend, also coming to the wedding we were heading to, was going to be staying in Leucadia at her sister’s, a mile from our hotel! We arranged to meet her for breakfast and went to sleep.
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