Bike the Bay, San Diego, Aug 30, 2009

Rasila decided to sign us up for a bike ride for our anniversary this year, especially because we did not do the Rosarito-Ensenada this year due to it's late resurrection and the general turmoil in Mexico these days. So, she signed us up for the Bike the Bay event.

We went down Saturday night and spent the night with David and Jill. We had dinner at a new Mexican Sushi Sports Bar (yes, it really exists and was quite good) and went to sleep early since we had to get up at 5:15 AM

Sunday, we had bagels and bananas, walked Ziwi, then headed down to the San Diego Convention Center, which was the parking for the ride. We rode over to the start, grabbed some Peet's Coffee, and waited for the staggered start at 7:00 AM. We were in about the 5th or 6th group, starting about 7:30AM. The ride went along Harbor drive, then up 10th to just under the bridge, where we road an offramp up to the main span. We were separated by the concrete barriers from the car traffic and the bridge was actually much easier than we expected. Riding up Turtle Rock in our neighborhood is much tougher!

We cruised down the back, past Coronado Golf Course, the Hotel Del Coronado, the Navy Seal Base, then down the Silver Strand to Imperial Beach. The Bayshore Bikeway is a great ride. We came back up through the Chula Vista Marina, the 32nd Street Naval Base, the NASSCO Shipyards, and back to Embarcadero Park for the after party. We made it at about 9:30, 2 hours for the ride.

There was Peet's Iced Tea, Carnitas and Fish Tacos, and plenty of Vitamin Water, various Teas, and Karl Strauss Brewery for consumption. A 3 "man" band called the "Blond Brothers Band" (ages 13, 14, and 20) entertained us. They were quite good. They said they had "ongoing technical difficulties" since they had no beer from the beer garden ;-)

We didn't win anything in the lottery drawing, so we left about 11:00 AM, then dropped by to shower and pick up Ziwi at David and Jill's and made it home about 2:00 PM.