Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Perfect day




















We both got over some inconvenient sicknesses, spent a healthy day getting things done about the house, and took the next day off to go for a bike ride. As soon as the kids were off to school we loaded up the tandem bike and headed down the hill.
We started at the Hotel Del Coronado (largest wooden structure by floor area in the world. "Some Like It Hot" was filmed there) It's the building waaay in the distance to the left of AM's head in the picture.
There's a very nice bike trail that heads down the 'Silver Strand', the sandbar that makes San Diego Bay a bay. The ocean side is used by Navy Seals and various amphibious watercraft. We kept spotting submarines breaching the surface. Further down is Arctic Tern habitat, then the State beach.
AnnaMarie had never been to Imperial Beach before. It's nice, kind of a hidden tucked away beach community. Although it nearly borders Mexico, the wetland habitat of the Tijuana River estuary keeps it from getting any border traffic. The contamination of the beach 6 months out of the year from the Tijuana River keeps the beach from ever becoming really popular. We rode as far south as possible on the U.S. Western seacoast, within less than a mile of Mexico.
Back North a few blocks is the Imperial Beach Pier. The restaurant (The Tin Fish) on the pier was very good and good prices.
We had a slight headwind riding down so looked forward to a boost on the return; unfortunately the wind shifted 180* and got strong...My pre-trip planning mileage was dead on---9 miles---except for the minor detail I thought it was 9 miles round trip instead of one way. AnnaMarie never complained and really pedalled hard on the return trip. At one point, riding past the base, there were 200 recruits on a double time march. My wife, likely twice their age, stood up to pedal at this point (Not sure if she knows how good she looks in her date jeans) but there were 400 eyes on her. In my opinion she did her part for her country.
Stopped at a farmer's market on the way home and still beat the school bus. Thanks to the recent change, there was plenty daylight time saved for me to get some good work done on the new place. Time with the kids in the evening followed by a really good night's sleep.
Perfect day

2 comments:

Tina said...

That'll do!

keeka said...

Sounds like a great day! Glad you two can get away on these type of trips! Carl rides but I don't really...I prefer an evening out with a reeeeaaalllly good dinner. An evening to really reflect on and enjoy thinking about for weeks later! Unfortunately, that usually only happens once a year! We also take our yearly trip to Vegas for a getaway where we see a fantastic show and have really good food! We like to spend our money on actual memory making things instead of throwing our money away gambling.