Wednesday April 22, 2015

It was cold when we got up this morning, we had our leggings, heavier jackets, and our hats under our helmets.

There was a little climb out of Pine Valley and then downhill almost all the way to San Diego. People had told us it was downhill all the way, but of course we very rarely believe a car driver when they tell us this. Our overall elevation drop today was 1,668 metres.

We arrived in Alpine, and had a quick stop at the McDonalds, we needed to warm up and had a hot cup of coffee. Then it was downhill again to San Diego. Most of the way to San Diego we had a cycle lane, which was really nice.

We met two touring cyclists just starting the Southern Tier, one is going to El Paso and the other is going to Silver City.

After we chatted to them we made our right turn and then got misplaced. It added a few more kilometres to our day, but we eventually found the right route and headed along an off-road cycle lane to the Pacific Ocean and Ocean Beach, where nasturtiums were growing wild.

We chatted to a couple from Phoenix (who took the photo) and then headed to the hostel in Point Loma.

We booked into a mixed dorm room and settled in. The hostel is really clean and has a great space for us to keep the bikes. The only negative is that there is no alcohol allowed. I was really looking forward to a few days of and a glass of wine or two.

After we had settled in we went for a walk. We found a German restaurant, and decided to celebrate and have a good meal. It was lovely, bratwurst and spaetzle and good beer.

When we got back to the hostel we chatted to people in our room. I also met a lovely lady called Leslie who is from San Francisco, she has offered us a place to stay when we cycle through San Francisco.