Going west to get to Boston..

The day finally arrived. Twenty five or so nervous and excited cyclists assembled in the early morning fog, listened to a few final words from the trip leaders, and then lined up two by two and did a slow ride west to the Manhattan Beach pier. We carried our bikes to the water (ignoring the funny looks from early morning surfers) and dipped the rear wheel into the Pacific. This was followed by the official group photo (I'm top row, third from left) and we turned from the ocean and started the adventure. Our opening shot was a 12 percent grade hill that went straight up from the beach for the first 3/4 blocks - just enough to serve as a wake-up call for the day. Once away from the beach the streets were pretty quiet which was a good thing because most of the day was spent in the Los Angeles suburbs (actually I've never been sure there really is an LA-I think it just a collection of a bunch of suburbs). We rode through the South Bay area, into North Long Beach (where I was in the Navy) and then west through Orange County: Anaheim and then to Riverside county and finally into Riverside itself. I think we were all curious, and maybe even a little nervous, about the prospect of riding through city streets. What surprised me was that for the most part there were bike lanes on almost all the roads and highways even in the most urban of areas. The prettiest part of the ride was probably the approach to Riverside. We had maybe 10 miles on a street lined with eucalyptus and giant palm trees. The island down the center was planted with what looked like a rock rose and where there weren't houses with beautiful landscaping there were orange groves. The only little fly in the ointment was the fact that there stop signs every block for almost the entire length of the run-very annoying to a cyclist. So-all in all a good first day. 79 miles covered in about 5 and 1/2 hours, only one missed turn (good for a couple of extra miles-all uphill), Tomorrow will be our approach to the desert-not quite the Mojave (that comes a day later) but through Palm Springs and to Indio is going to be a very hot day - probably 100. More on that to come.... And finally a belated Happy Mother's Day to my own favorite mothers-Susan, Katherine, Beth and Kelli...I hope you all had a good one.